Report on the Condition and Needs of the Mission Indians of California

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REPORT ^ ,

THE CONDITION AND NEEDS

OF THE

MISSION INDIANS OF CALIFORNIA,

MADB BT

SPECIAL AGENTS

HELEN JACKSON AND ABBOT KINNEY,

TO THK

COMMISSIONER OF INDIAN AFFAIRS. ' : .

WASHINGTON:

OOYEBNMENT PRINTING OPPICB.

1883.
5090 M I

U^i

10^7.5'^

/

.■):»

^;

--- - T"- '

REPORT

ON

THE CONDITION AND NEEDS OF THE MISSION INDIANS*

Colorado Springs, Colo.,

July 13, 1883.

Sib : In compliance with our instructions bearing dates !November
'2Sj 1882, and January 12, 1883, we have the honor to submit to you the
following report on the subject of the Mission Indians in Southern Gali-
fomia.

The term " Mission Indians" dates back over one hundred years, to the
time of the Franciscan missions in California. It then included all In-
dians who lived in the mission establishments, or were under the care
of the Franciscan fathers. Yery naturally the term has continued to
be applied to the descendants of those Indians. In the classification
of the Indian Bur(»au, however, it is now used in a somewhat restricted
sense, embracing only those Indians living in the three southernmost
oounties of California, and known as Serranos, Cahuillas, San Luisenos,
And Dieguinos ; the last two names having evidently come from the
names of the southernmost two missions, San Luis Key and San Diego.
A census taken in 1880, of these bands, gives their number as follows:

Serranos 381

Cabuillas 675

San Lnisenos 1, 120

Dieguinos 731

Total 2,907

This estimate probably falls considerably short of the real numbers,
as there are no doubt in hiding, so to speak, in remote and inaccessible
«pots, many individuals, families, or even villages, that have never
been counted. These Indiaus are living for the most part in small and
isolated villages; some on reservations set apart for them by Executive
order; some on Government land not reserved, and some upon lands
included within the boundaries of confirmed Mexican grants.

Considerable numbers of these Indians are also to be found on the
outskirts of white settlements, as at Riverside, San Bernardino, or in
the colonies in the San Gabriel Valley, where they live like gypsies in
brush huts, here to-day, gone to-morrow, eking out a miserable exist-
-ence by days' works, the wages of which are too often spent for whisky
in the village saloons. Travelers in Southern California, who have
formed their impressions of the Mission Indians from these wretched
wayside creatures, would be greatly surprised at the sight of some of
the Indian villages in the mountain valleys, where, freer from the con-
taminating influence of the white race, are industrious, peaceable com-
munities, cultivating ground, keeping stock, carrying on their own.
isimple manufactures of pottery, mats, baskets, &c., and making their liv-

ing — a very poor living, it is true, but they are independent and self-
respecting in it, and ask nothing at the hands of the United States Gov-
ernment now, except that it will protect them in the ownership of their
lands, lands which, in many instances, have been in continuous occupa-
tion and cultivatidn by their ancestors for over one hundred years.

From tract after tract of such lands they have been driven out, year
by year, by the white settlers of the country, until they can retreat no
farther: some of their villages being literally in the last tillable spot
on tihe desert's edge or in mountain fastnesses. Yet there are in South-
em Galifomia to-day many fertile valleys, which only thirty years ago-
were Uke garden spots with these same Indians' wheat fields, orchards^
and vineyards. Now, there is left in these valleys no trace of the In-
dians' occupation, except the ruins of their adobe houses ; iu some in-
stances these houses, still standing, are occupied by the robber whites
who drove them out. The responsibility for this wrong rests, i>erhaps,.
equally divided between the United States Government, which permit-
ted lands thus occupied by peaceful agricultural communities to be put
"in market," and the white men who were not restrained either by hu-
manity or by a sense of justice, from "filing" homestead claims on
lands which had been fenced, irrigated, tilled, and lived on by Indiana
for many generations. The Government cannot justify this neglect on
the plea of ignorance. Eepeatedly, in the course of the last thirty
years, both the regular agents in charge of the Mission Indians and
special agents sent out to investigate their condition have made to the
Indian Bureau full reports setting forth these facts.

In 1873 one of these special agents, giving an account of the San
Pasquale Indians, mentioned the fact that a white man had just pre-
empted the land on which the greater part of the village was situated.
He had paid the price of the land to the register of the district land
fflce, and was daily expecting his patent from Washington. "He
owned," the agent says, "that it was hard to wrest from these well-
dispo^l^ and industrious creatures the homes they had built up; but,"
said b^, " if I had not done it, somebody else would ; for all agree that
the Indian has no right to public lands." This San Pasquale village
was a regularly organized Indian pueblo, formed by about one hundred
neophytes of the San Luis Bey Mission, under and in accordance with
the provisions of the secularization act in 1834. The record of its found-
ing is preserved in the Mexican archives at San Francisco. These In-
dians had herds of cattle, horses, and sheep; they raised grains, and had
orchards and vineyards. The whole valley in which this village lay
was at one time set off by Executive order as a reservation, but by the
efforts of designing men the order was speedily revoked, and no sooner
bad this been done than the process of dispossessing the Indians began^
There is now, on the site of that old Indian pueblo, a white settlement
numbering 35 voters. The Indians are all gone; some to other villages,,
some living near by in cafions and nooks in the hills, from which, on the
occasional visits of the priest, they gather and hold services in the half
mined adobe chapel built by them in the days of their prosperity.

This story of the San Pasquale Indians is only a fair showing of the
exi^eriences of the Mission Indians during the past fifty years. Almost
without exception they have been submissive and peaceable through it
all, and have retreated again and again to new refuges. In a few in-
stances there have been slight insurrections among them, and threaten -
ings of retaliation, but in the main their history has been one of almost
incredible long suffering and patience under wrongs.

In 1851 one of the San Luiseno bands, the Aqua Oaliente Indians^ iu

the north part of San Diego Coantyj made an attack on the house of a
white settler, and there was for a time great fear of a general uprising
of all the Indians in the country. It is probable that this was instigated
by the Mexicans, and that there was a concerted plan for driving the
Americans out of the country. The outbreak was easily quelled how-
ever, four of the chiefs were tried by court-martial and shot by order
of General Heintzelman, and in January of the following year a treaty
was made with the San LuiscDO and Dieguino Indians, setting off for
them large tracts of land. This treaty was made by a United States
oommissioner, Dr. Wozencraft and Lieutenant Hamilton, representing
the Army, and Col. J. J. Warner, the settler whose house had been at-
tacked. The greater part of the lands which were by this treaty assigned
to the Indians are pow within the boundaries of grants confirmed and
patented since that time; bi;t there are many Indian villages still re-
maining on them, and all Indians living on such lands are supposed to
bo there solely on the tolerance and at the mercy of the owners of said
ranches, and to be liable to ejectment by law. Whether this be so or
not is a point which it would seem to be wise to test before the courts.
It is certain that in the case of all these Mission Indians the rights in-
volved are quite different from and superior to the mere "occupancy"
right of the wild and uncivilized Indian.

At the time of the surrender of California to the United States these
Mission Indians had been for over seventy years the subjects, first of
the Spanish Government, secondly of the Mexican. They came under
the jurisdiction of the United States by treaty provisions, the treaty
of Guadalupe Hidalgo, between the United States and Mexico, in 1848.
At this time they were so far civilized that they had become the chief
dependence of the Mexican and white settlers for all service indoors
and out. In the admirable report upon these Indians made to the
Interior Department in 1853, by the Hon. B. D. Wilson, of Los Angeles,
are the following statements:

These same Indians had built all the houses in the country, planted all the fields
4knd vineyards. Under the Missions there were masons, carpenters, plasterers, soap-
makers, tanners, shoemakers, blacksmiths, millers, bakers, cooks, brick-makers,
carters and cart>makers, weavers and spinners, saddlers, shepherd^ agrjcolturalists,.
horticulturalists, vineros, vaqueros, in a word, they fiUed all the hiborious ocoapa>
tions known to civilized society.

The^ intentions of the Mexican Government toward these Indians
were wise and humane. At this distance of time^ and in face of the
melancholy facts of the Indians' subsequent history, it is painful to go
over the details of the plans devised one short half century ago for
their benefit. In 1830, there were in the twenty-one missions in Cali-
fornia, some 20,000 or 30,000 Indians living comfortable and industrious
lives under the control of the Franciscan fathers. The Spanish colo-
nization plan had, from the outset, contemplated the turning of these
mission establishments into pueblos as soon as the Indians should
have become sufficiently civilized to make this feasible. The Mexican
Oovernment, carrying out the same general plan, issued in 1833 an act,
oalled the secularization act, decreeing that this change should be
ma^e. This act provided that the Indians should have assigned to
them cattle, horses, and sheep from the mission herds; also, lands for
<5ultivation. One article of Governor Figueroa's regulations for the
carrying out of the secularization act provided that there should be
given to every head of a family, and to all above twenty-one years of
age, though they had no family, a lot of land not exceeding 400 varas
aquare, nor less than 100. There was also to be given to them in com-

moD, enough land for pasturing and watering their cattle. Another
article j)rovided that one-half the cattle of each mission school should
be divided among the Indians of that mission in a proportionable and
equitable manner; also one-half of the chattels, instruments, seeds, &c.
Eestrictions were to be placed on the disposition of this property. The
Indians were forbidden '*to sell, burden, or alienate under any pretext
the lands given them. Neither can they sell the cattle.'' The Com-
missioners charged with the carrying out of these provisions were
ordered to "explain all the arrangements to the Indians with suavity and
patience;" to tell them that the lands and property will be divided,
among them so that each one may " work, maintain, and govern himself
without dependence on any one." It was also provided that the ranche-
rias (villages) situated at a distance from the missions, and containing
over twenty-five families, might, if they chose, form separate pueblos,,
and the distribution of lands and property to them should take place in
the same manner provided for those living near the missions.

These provisions were in no case faithfully carried out. The adminis-
tration of the Missions' vast estates and property was too great a temp-
tation for human nature, especially in a time of revolution and misrule.
The history of the thirteen years between the passing of the seculari-
zation act and the conquest of California is a record of shameful fraud
and pillage, of which the Indians were the most hapless victims. In-
stead of being permitted each one to work, maintain, and govern him-
self without dependence on any one as they had been promised, their
rights to their plats of land were in the majority of cases ignored ; they
were forced to labor on the mission lands like slaves; in many instances
they were hired out in gangs to cruel masters. From these cruelties
and oppressions they fled by hundreds, returning to their old wilderness
homes. Those who remained in the neighborhood of the pueblos became
constantly more and more demoralized and were subjected to every form
of outrage. By a decree of the Los Angeles aqumiento, about the time of
our taking possession of California, all Indians found without passes,,
either from the alcalde of the pueblos in which they lived, or from their
"masters, [significant phrase] were to be treated as horse thieves and
enemies." At this time there were, according to Mr. Wilson's report^
whole streets in Los Angeles where every other house was a grog-shop
for Indians; and every Satuijlay night the town was filled with Indians
in every stage of intoxication. Those who were helpless and insensible
were carried to the jail, locked up, and on Monday morning bound
out to the highest bidders at the jail gates. " The Indian has a quick
sense of justice," says Mr. Wilson; "he can never see why he is sold
out to service for an indefinite period for intemperance, while the white
man goes unpunished for the same thing, and the very ri<;hest and best
men, to his eye, are such as tempt him to drink, and sometimes will pay
him for his labor in no other way." Even the sober and industrious
and best skilled among them could earn but little; it having become a.
custom to pay an Indian only half the wages of a white man.

From this brief and necessarily fragmentary sketch of the position
and state of the Mission Indians under the Mexican Government,
at the time of the surrender of California to the United States, it will
be seen that our Government received by the treaty of Guadalupe
Hidalgo a legacy of a singularly helpless race in a singularly anomalous
position. It would have been very difiicult, even at the outset, to devise
practicable methods of dealing justly with these people, and preserving
to them their rights. But with every year of our neglect the difficulties
have Increased and the wrongs have been multiplied, until now it %

Immanly speaking, impossible to render to them fall measure of justice.
All that is left in our power is to make them some atonement. Fortu- j
nately for them, their numbers have greatly diminished. Suffering, hun-
ger, disease, and vice have cut down more than half of their numbers in the
last thirty years; but the remnant is worth saving. Setting aside all
question of their claim as a matter of atonement for injustice done, they are
deserving of help on their own merits. No one can visit their settlements,
such as Aqua Caliente, Saboba, Cahuilla Valley, Santa Ysabel, without
having a sentiment of respect and profound sympathy for men who, friend-
less, poor, without protection from the law, hsLve still continued to work,
planting, fencing, irrigating, building houses on lands from which long
experience has taught them that the white man can drive them off any
day he chooses. That drunkenness, gambling, and other immoralities
are sadly prevalent among them, cannot be denied ; but the only wonder
is that so many remain honest and virtuous under conditions which make
practically null and void for them, most of the motives which keep
white men honest and virtuous.

Having thus given as brief a presentation as possible of the general
situation and nature of these Indians, we will proceed to state what,
to the best of our judgment, are the steps which ought to be taken by
the United States Government in their behalf. The descriptions of the
most important villages we visited, and the detailed accounts of cir-
cumstances and situations on which our suggestions are based, are given
for convenience of reference in separate exhibits.

1st. The first and most essential step, without which there is no pos-
sibility of protecting these Indians or doing anything intelligently for '
them, is the determining, resurveying, rounding out, and distinctly
marking, their reservations already existing. The only way of having
this done accurately and honestly, is to have it done by a surveyor who
is under the orders and constant supervision of an intelligent and hon-
est commissioner ; not by an independent surveyor who runs or "floats'^
reservation lines where he and his friends or interested parties choose,
instead of where the purpose of the United States Government, looking
to the Indians' interests, had intended. There have been too many
surveys of Indian reservations in Southern California of this sort. (See
Exhibits C, H, I, J, L.) All the reservations made in 1876, and that
comprises nearly all now existing, were laid off by guess, by the sur-
veyor in San Diego, on an imperfect county map. These sections, thus
guessed at by the surveyor, were reported by the Commissioner to the
Interior Department, set aside by Executive order, and ordered to be
surveyed. When the actual survey came to be made, it was discovered
that in the majority of cases the Indian villages intended to be pro-
vided for were outside the reservation lines, and that the greater part
of the lands set apart were wholly worthless. The plats of these
reservations are in the surveyor-generaPs offtce at San Francisco. On
each of them was marked by the surveyor an additional line in color,
showing what tracts ought to be added to take in the Indian villages
and fields. So far as we could learn, no action was taken in regard to
these proposed additions.

The reservation lines, when thus defined, should be marked plainly
and conspicuously by monuments and stakes, leaving no room for doubt.
A plat of each reservation should then be given to the Indians living
on it. It was pathetic, in our visits to village after village, to hear the
Indians' request reiterated for this thing — " a paper to show to the white
men where their lands were.'' Every fragment of writing they had ever
received, which could by any possibility bear on their title to their

lands, they had carefully preserved ; old tattered orders from Army
officers thirty years back, orders from justices of the peace, &c., all
worthless of course, but brought forward with touching earnestness to
show us. In no single instance had the reservation lines ever been
pointed out to them. One band, the Sequan Indians, who had never
seen any agent, said they had been told that they were on a reservation,
but they did not know if it were true or not. They had been obliged
to give up keeping stock, because they could not find any place where
the whites would let them pasture cattle. (See Exhibit J.)

There are some settlements of Indians on Government lands not set
off as reservations, in some instances not surveyed. These tracts should
all be surveyed, their boundaries marked, and the lands withdrawn from
market to be permanently set aside for the Indians' use. We use the
term " rounding out" in regard to these reservations chiefly on account
of the complication which results from their being in some cases within
the limit of railroad grants, and made subsequent to those grants.
Some are actually within the limits of the Southern Pacific Eailroad
grant; others will be within the limits of the Texas Paeific grant, should
that be confirmed. The odd sections thus belonging to the railroads
should be secured to the Indians. There are also a few claims to lands
within reservation boundaries, which are legal on account of their hav-
ing been made before the reservations were set off. These should be
extinguished. (See Exhibit O.)

2d. All white settlers now on reservations should be removed. For
the last four years stray settlers have been going in upon reservation
tracts. This is owing to the lack of boundary definitions and marks as
aforesaid, also to the failure of the surveys to locate the reservations so
as to take in all the ground actually occupied by Indian villages. Thus,
in many instances, tiie Indians' fields and settlements have been wrested
from them and they in their turn have not known where they could or
could not go. There is not a single reservation of any size which is
free from white settlers. It would seem that agents in charge of these
Indians should have 1>een authoritatively instructed in no case to allow
squatters to settle on lands known to be within reservation lines,
whether they were occupied by Indians or not. (See Exhibits H, I, O.)

The amount of land set off in Indian reservations in Southern Cali-
fornia appears by the record to be very large, but the proportion of
it which is really available is very small. San Diego Gounty itself is
four-fifths desert and mountain, and it is no exaggeration to say that
the proportion of desert and mountain in the reservation is even larger
than this. By thus resurveying, rounding out, and freeing from white
settlers the present reservations, adding to them all Oovernment lands
now actually in occupation by Indians, there will be, according to the
best of our judgment, nearly land enough for the accommodation of all
the Mission Indians except those whose settlements are on grants.

3d. In regard to this latter class, t. e., those whose villages are now
within the boundaries of confirmed grants, the Government has to
choose between two courses of action : either to remove them and make
other provision for them, or to uphold and defend their right to remain
where they are. In support of the latter course we believe a strong
case could be made out, and we have secured from one of the ablest
firms in Southern California a written legal opinion on this point. (See
Exhibit A.) It seems clear that this contest should be made by the
Government itself. It is impossible for these poverty-stricken and ig-
norant people to undertake on their own account and at their own ex-
pense the legal settlement of this matter. It would be foolish to

advise it ; inhamaa to expect it. A test case could be made which
would settle the question for all. (See Exhibit B.) In case the de-
cision be favorable to the Indians remaining, the ranch owners should
then be called on to mark off the boundaries of the Indians' lands ac-
cording to the California State law covering such cases. (See Exhibit
R.) Whether the lands thus reverting to the Indians could properly
be considered as Government lands or not, would be a question to be
determined. Probably the surest way of securing them for the Indians'
permanent use would be to consider them as such and have them de-
ifined as reservations by act of Congress.

4th. And this brings us to our fourth recommendation, which is, that
all these Indians' reservations, those already set off by Executive order,
and all new ones made for them, whether of Government lands now in
their occupation, or of lands which may be hereafter by legal process
reclaimed for them from the grant lands on which they are now living,
be patented to the several bands occupying them ; the United States
to hold the patent in trust for the period of twenty-five years ; at
the expiration of that time the United States to convey the same by
patent to said Indians, as has been done for the Omaha Indians. The
insecurity of reservations made merely by Executive order is apparent,
and is already sadly illustrated in Southern California by the history
of the San Pasquale Eeservation, that of Aqua Caliente and others.
The insecurity of reservations set apart by act of Congress is only a
degree less. The moment it becomes the interest and purpose of white
men in any section of the country to have such reservation tracts re-
stored to the public domain, the question of its being done is only a
question of influence and time. It is sure to be done. The future of
these industrious, pekceable, agricultural communities ought not to be
left a single day longer than ia necessary, dependent on such chances;
chances which are always against and never for Indians' interests in the
matter of holding lands. The best way and time of allotting these In-
•diani^ lands to them in severalty must be left to the decision of the
GDvernment, a provision being incorporated in their i>atent to provide
for such allotments from time to time as may seem desirable, and agents
and commissioners being instructed to keep the advantages of this
system constantly before the Indians' minds. Some of them are fit for
it now, and earnestly desire it, but the majority are not ready for it.
The communal system, on which those now living in villages use their
lands, satisfies them, and is apparently administered without difficulty
It is precisely the same system as that on which the pueblo lands were
cultivated by the early Spanish settlers in Southern California. They
agree among themselves to respect each other's right of occupancy ; a
mim's right to a field this year depending on his having cidtivated it last
year, and so on. It seems not to occur to these Indians that land is a
thing to be quarreled over.

In the village of Aqua Caliente, one of the most intelligent of the
young men was so anxious to show us his fields that we went with him
a little distance outside the village limits to see them. He had some
eight acres in grain, vine^ and fruit trees. Pointing first in one direc-
tion, then in another, he indicated the places where his ground joined
other men's ground. There was no line of demarcation whatever, ex-
cept it chanced to be a difference of crops. We said to him, ^^ Ales-
sandro, how do you know which is your land and which is theirs 1"
He seemed perplexed, and replied, << This was my mother's land. We
have always had it." ^' But," we persisted, '^ suppose one of these other
men should want more land and should take a piece of yours t" <^He

10

couldn't,'' was all the reply we could get from Alessaudro, and it was
plain that he was greatly puzzled by the suggestion of the possibility
of neighbors trespassing on each other's cultivated fields.

5th. We recommend the establislimeut of more schools. At least
two more are immediately needed, one at the Eincon, and one at Santa
Ysabel. (See Exhibits G. L.) As the reservations are gradually
cleared, defined and assured for the Indians' occupancy, hundreds of In-
dians who are now roving from place to place, without fixed homes, will
undoubtedly settle down in the villages and more schools will be needed.
It is to be hoped also, that some of the smaller bands will unite with
the larger ones for the sake of the advantages of the school, and other
advantages of a larger community. The isolated situation of many of
the smaller settlements is now an insuperable difliculty in the way of
providing education for all the children. These Indians are all keenly
alive to the value of education. In every village that we visited we
were urged to ask the Government to give them a school. In one they
insisted upon ranging the children all in rows, that we might see for
ourselves that there were children enough to justify the establishing
of a school.

In this connection we would suggest that if a boarding and indus-
trial school, similar to those at Hampton and Carlisle, could be estab-
lished in Southern California, it would be of inestimable value and
would provide opportunities for many children who, owing to the the is-^
olation of their homes, could not be reached in any other way.

We would further suggest that, in our judgment, only women teach-
ers should be employed in these isolated Indian villages. There is a
great laxity of morals among these Indians, and in the wild regions
where their villages lie, the unwritten law of public sentiment, which
in more civilized communities does so much to keep men virtuous,
hardly exists. Therefore the post of teacher in these schools is one full
of temptations and danger to a man. (See Exhibit M.) Moreover,
women have more courage and self-denying missionary spirit, sufficient
to undertake such a life, and have an invaluable infiuence outside their
school-rooms. They go familiarly into the homes, and are really edu-
eating the parents as well as the children in a way which is not within
the power of any man, however earnest and devoted he may be.

We would also suggest that great good might be accomplished among
these Indians by some form of itinerary religious and educational labor
among them. In the list of assignments of Indian agencies to different
religious denominations, as given in the report of the Indian Bureau
for 1882, the Mission Agency is assigned to the Evangelical Lutheran ;
but we could not learn that this denomination had done any work
among them. So far as the Mission Indians have any religion at all
they are Catholics. In many of the villages are adobe chapels, built
in the time of the missions, where are still preserved many relics. of the
mission days, such as saints' images, holy-water kettles, &c. In these
ehapels on the occasions of the priest's visits the Indians gather in
great numbers, women sometimes walking two days' journey, bringing
tiieir babies on their backs to have them baptized. There are also in
several of the villages old ludians, formerly trained at the missions,
who officiate with Catholic rites at funerals, and on Sundays repeat
parts of the mass. As these Indians are now situated in isolated set-
tlements so far apart, and so remote^ from civilized centres, the only
practicable method of reaching them all would be by some form of
itinerary labor. A fervent religious and practical teacher who should
spend his time in going firom village to village^ remaining in each a few

u

*

days or weeks, as the case might be, woald sow seed which would not
cease to grow during the intervals of his absence. If he were a man
of sound common sense and knowledge of laws of life, fitted to instruct
the Indians in mattersof hygiene, cleanliness, ventilation, &c., and in a>
few of the simple mechanical arts, as well as in the doctrines of religion
and morality, he would do more for the real good of these people at
present than can be accomplished by schools.

6th. The suggestion of the value of itinerary labor among the Indians
leads to our next recommendation, which we consider of great impor-
tance, viz, that it should be made the duty of any Government agent
in charge of the Mission Indians to make a round of inspection at least
twice a year, visiting each village or settlement however small. In no
other way can anything like a proper supervision of these Indians' in-
terests be attained. This proof of the Government's intention to keep
a sharp eye on all that might occur in relation to the Indians would
have a salutary moral effect, not only on the Indians, but on the white
settlers in their neighborhood. It would also afford the means of deal-
ing with comparative promptitude with the diflSculties and troubles con-
tinually arising. As it is now, it is not to be wondered at that the In-
dians feel themselves unprotected and neglected, and the white settlers^
feel themselves safe in trespassing on Indians' property or persons. In
some of the villages, where pre-emption claims have been located within
the last four years, no agent has ever been. It is safe to say, that had
an agent been on the ground each year, with the proper authority Uy
take efficient measures, much of the present suffering and confusion
would have been prevented. In the case, for instance, of the Los Coy-
otes village, filed on a few months ago (see Exhibit F), there was no
reason why those lands should not have been set apart for the In-
dians long ago, had their situation been understood ; so in the San
Tsidro' case, and others. The whole situation of an agent in regard to
the Mission Indians is totally different from that of ordinary agency on
a reservation. The duties of an Indian agent on a reservation may be
onerous, but they are in a sense simple. His Indians are all together,
within comparatively narrow limits, and, so to speak, under his hand,
and dependent largely on the Government. The Mission Indians, on
the contrary, are scattered in isolated settlements thirty, forty, a hun-
dred miles away from the agency headquarters, many of them in regions
difficult of access. Moreover, tbe Indians are in the main self-support-
ing and independent. Protection or oversight worth anything to them
can only be given by a systematic method of frequent visitation.

What is true in this respect of the agent's work is, if possible, still
truer of the physician's. If there is to be an agency physician for the
Mission Indians at all, he should be a young, strong, energetic man, who
is both able and willing to make at least four circuits a year through the
villages, and who will hold himself bound to go when called in all cases
of epidemics, serious illness, or accidents occurring among Indians within
one day's journey of the agency headquarters. Whatever salary it is
necessary to pay to secure such service as this should be paid, or else the
office of agency physician to the Mission Indians should be abolished.
Anything less than this is a farce and a fraud.

7th. We recommend that there be secured the appointment of a law-
yer, or a law firm in Los Angeles, to act as special United States attor-
ney in all cases affecting the interests of these Indians. They have
* been so long without any protection from the law that outrages and
depredations upon them have become the practice in all white com-
nmnitieB near which they live. Indians^ stock ia fielded; oorraled and

12

lield for fines, sometimes shot, even on the Indians' own reservations
or in the pablic domain. In seasons of dearth roving stockmen and
isbepherds drive their herds and flocks into Indians' grain fields, de-
stroying their subsistence for a whole year. Lands occupied by Indians
or by Indian villages are filed on for homestead entry precisely as if they
were vacant lands. This has beeu more than once done without the
Indians receiving any warning until the sheriff arrived with the writ
for their ejectment. The Indians' own lives are in continual danger, it
being a safe thing to shoot an Indian at any time when only Indian
witnesses are present. (See Exhibits G, E.) It is plain that all such
oases as these should be promptly dealt with by equal means. One of
the greatest difficulties in the position of the Mission Indians' agent is,
that in all such cases he is powerless to act except through the, at best,
48low and hitherto unsatisfactory channel of reporting to the Interior
Department. He is in the embarrassing position of a guardian of wards
with property and property rights, for the defense of which he is unable
to call in prompt legal assistance. In instances in which the Indians
themselves have endeavored to get redress through the courts, they
have in the majority of cases, to the shame of the Southern California
bar be it spoken, been egregiously cheated. They are as helpless as
ohildren in the hands of dishonest, unscrupulous men. We believe that
the mere fact of there being such a United States legal authority near
at hand to act for the Indians, would in a short time, after a few effective
illustrations of its power, do away with the greater proportion of the
troubles demanding legal interference.

The question of the rights of Indians living on grant lands to remain
there will, if the Department decides to test it by law, involve some liti-
gation, as it will no doubt be contested by the' ranch owners ; but this
point once settled and the Indians secured in the ownership of their
lands, a very few years will see the end of any special need ot litigation
in their behalf. We recommend in this connection and for this office
the firm of Brunson & Wells, of Los Angeles. We have obtained from
this firm a clear and admirable opinion on these Indians' right to their
present homes (see Exhibit A), and we know them to be of high stand-
ing at the bar and to have a humane sympathy for Indians.

dth. We recommend that there should be a judicious distribution of
Agricultural implements among these Indians. No village should be
omitted. Wagons, harness, plows, spades, and hoes are greatly needed.
It is surprising to see what some of these villages have accomplished
with next to no implements. In the Santa Ysabel village the Indians
had three hundred acres in wheat; there were but three old broken
plows in the village, no harness, and no wagon. fSee Exhibit G.)
There is at present much, and not unfounded, sore feeling in some of
the villages which have thus far received no help of this kind, while
others of the villages have been supplied with all that was needed.

9th. There should always be provided for the Mission Indians' agency
a small fund for the purchase of food and clothing for the very old and
«ick in times of especial destitution. The Mission Indians as a class do
not beg. They are proud spirited, and choose to earn their living.
They will endure a great deal before they will ask for help. But in
43easons of drought or when their little crops have, for any cause, failed,
there is sometimes great distress in the villages. Last winter the Oa-
huillas, in the Gahuilla Valley (see Exhibit C), were for many weeks
without sufficient food. The teacher of their school repeatedly begged'
them to let her write to the agent for help, but they refused. At last
one night the captain and two of the headmen came to her room and

13

said she might write. They could no longer subdue the hunger. She
wrote the letter; the next morning at daylight the- Indians were at her
door again. They had reconsidered it^ they said, and they would not
beg. They would rather starve, and they would not permit her to send
the letter.

10th. The second and third special points on which we were instructed
to report to the Department were, whether there still remains in Souths
em Oalifomia any Government land suitable for an Indian reservation,
and if not, in case lands must be bought for that purpose, what landfr
can be most advantageously purchas^. There is no Government land
remaining in Southern California in blocks of any size suitable for
either white or Indian occupancy. The reason that the isolated little
settlements of Indians are being now so infringed upon and seized,,
even at the desert's edge and in stony fastnesses of mountains, is that
all the good lands, t. e.j lands with water or upon which water can be^
developed, are taken up.

We recommend two purchases of land ; one positively, the other con-
tingently. The first is the Pauma ranch, now owned by Bishop Mora^
of Los Angeles. (See Exhibit P.) jjj^his ranch lying as it does betweei^
the Eincon and Pala Keservations on the north and south, and adjoining^
the La JoUa Eeservation, affords an admirable opportunity to consolidate
a large block of land for Indian occupancy. It is now, in our opinion,,
a desirable tract. While it is largely hilly and mountainous, tliere i&
considerable good sheep and cattle pasturing on it and a fair amount or
bottom land for cultivation along the river. The price asked for it is,,
as lands are now selling in Southern California, low. If the already
existing reservations are cleared of whites, unified, and made ready for
Indian occupancy, and the Government lands now in actual occupation
by Indians be assured to them, the addition of this Pauma ranch will
be, in our opinion, all that will be required to make comfortable provision;
for all the Indians, except those living within the boundaries of con-
firmed grants.

Should the Department decide to remove all these and provide then^
with new homes, we recommend the purchase of the Santa Ysabel ranch*.
(See Exhibit Q.) The purchase of this ranch for an Indian reservation
was recommended to the Government some years ago, but it was rejected
on account of the excessive price asked for it. It is now offered to the
Government for $95,000. During the past ten years the value of land»
in Southern California, has in many places quadrupled ; in some it Is^
worth more than twenty times what it was then. We have no hesitation
in saying that it is not now possible to buy an equally suitable tract for
any less money. The ranch contains 17,719.40 acres; is within the rain
belt of San Diego County, is well watered, and, although it is largely
mountainous, has good pasture, some meadow land, and some oak timber.
It is, moreover, in the region to which the greater proportion of these
Indians are warmly attached and in the vicinity of which most of them
are now living. One large Indian village is on the ranch. (See Exhibit
G.) Father Ubach, the Catholic priest of San Diego, who has known
these Indians for seventeen years, says of it, " it is the only tract to which
human power can force these Indians to remove." We recommend thi&
purchase only as a last resort in the event of the Department's beings
compelled to provide new homes tor all the Indians now living within the
boundaries of confirmed grants.

In conclusion, we would make the suggestion that there are several
small bands of Mission Indians north of the boundaries of the so-called
Mission Indians' agency, for whom it would seem to be the duty of the-

\^

14

'Oovemment to care as well as for those already enamerated. One of
these is the San Carlos Indians, living near the old Sau Carlos Mission at
Monterey. There are nearly one hundred of these, and they are living
on lands which were given to them before the secalarization act in
1834. These lands are close to the boundaries of the ranch San Fran-
oisquito of Monterey. These boundaries have been three times ex-
tended, each time taking in a few more acres of the Indians' lands, until
now they have only ten or twelve acres left. There are also some very
destitute Indians living in the neighborhood of the San Antonio Mis-
sion, some sixty miles south of Monterey, and of San Miguel, forty miles
farther south, and of Santa Juez near Santa Barbara. These Indians
should not be overlooked in arrangements made for the final establish-
ing of the Mission Indians in Southern California.

Hoping that these recommendations may be approved by the Depart-
;ment, we are.

Very respectfully, yours,

HELEN JACKSON.
ABBOT KINNEY.

Hon. H. Peicb, -

Commissionfr of Indian Affairs,

INDEX OP EXHIBITS.

Fage

A. Legal brief of Brunson and Wells. _ .. 14

B. Saboba 17

C. Cabnilla Reservation .-_ 18

D. Wamer^s Ranch Indians 20

E. San Ysidroe 22

F. LosCJoyotee 23

0. Santa Ysabel 24

H. Mesa Grande . 25

1. Capitan Grande 26

J. Seqnan 28

K. TheConejos _ 28

L. Pala and neighborhood, including Rincon, Panma, and La Jolia 29

M. Pachanga 30

N. The Desert Indians _ 31

O. San Gorgonio Reservation -- 32

P. Pauma Ranch and the proposal for its sale to the United States Government, 34

•Q. Proposition for sale of Santa Ysabel Ranch to the United States Government. 36

M, CJopy of California State law for the government and protection of Indians. _ _ 36

Exhibit A.

Los ANGKLB6, Cal., May 12, 1883.

Sis: In response to your verbal reqnest asking oar opinion as to the following qnes-
ttions, viz:

1st. Have civilized Indians and those who are engaged in agricnltnre or labor of any
kind, and also those who are known as Pueblos or Rancheros Indians in California, a
right to occupy and possess lands which they and their predecessors had continuonBly
^occupied, possessed, and ei^joyed while said lands were under the jurisdiction of the
Mexican Government, up to and at the date of the ratification of the treaty Guadalupe
Hidalgo between the United States and the Mexican Republic, March, 1848, notwith-
fitanding that said lands so occupied and enjoyed by the Indians aforesaid had beoi
while they were so occupying and possessing the same, by the proper Spanish and Mexi-
.can authorities before the ratification of said treaty granted to oertoin Spanish and Mezi*

15

«ttii citizens, and since the acquisition by the United States of the territory embracini;
8fud lands so granted been by the United States confirmed, surveyed, and patented t*
the grantees or their legal representatives ?

2d. Has the United States Grovemment the right to condemn lands within the State
of California for the purpose of giving Indians homes thereon ?

We have the honor to submit the following as our reply and answer to the above in-
terrogatories. Before and at the date of the treaty of G-uadalupe Hidalgo, all the terri-
tory now known as California was a part of and under the jurisdiction of the Mexicam
Republic. We do not regard it as necessary in order to answer the questions propounded
to give a history of the land laws of Spain and Mexico, nor the method of acquiring land
prior to August 18, 1824.

On August 18, 1824, the Mexican Congress enacted a general colonization law pre-
scribing the mode of granting lands throughout the Mexican territory. This law was
limited and defined by a series of regulations ordained by the Mexican Government,
November 21, 1828. By these laws and regulations, which have ever since continued in
force, the governors of Territories were authorized to grant with certain specified ex-
<9eptions vacant land. By the fundamental laws of 1824, the regulations of 1824, and
the regulations of the departmental legislature consistent therewith, all Mexican grants
in Caliibmia have been determined, and by this have been determined the validity oi
every grant of land in California. (Lesse and Yallejo vs. Clark, 3 Cal., 17.) The limi-
tations, as well as the fundamental laws mentioned, provided that in making grants Or
•distribution of land (such as are now known as Mexican grants) —

1st. It must be vacant land, and if occupied by Indians, then without prej udice to them.

2d. That such land as would be granted to the damage and injury of the Indians
should be returned to the rightful owners.

The Mexican Government reserved from private grant all lands occupied and possessed
by the Indians. Great care was taken to make strict reservation of such land, and by
law no valid grant of land occupied or possessed by Indians could be made so as to dis-
possess them. When California was ceded to the United States the rights of property of
its citizens remained unchanged. By the 4aw of nations those rights were sacred and
inviolable, and the obligations passed to the new government to protect and maintain
them. The term property, as applied to lauds, embraces all titles, legal or equitable, per-
fect or imperfect. (Teschemacher t'«. Thompson, 18 Cal., 12.) The United States never
had, and does not now possess, any power under or by virtue of said treaty whereby it
could or can confer upon a citizen holding and claiming property granted by the Mexican
Crovemment other or different property rights than those conferred by such Grovemment,
and such as were possessed, enjoyed, and held by him while under the jurisdiction ot
such Government. It cannot abridge or enlarge the right to eiyoy and to possess prop-
erty held by virtu^ of Mexican law at the date of said treaty, nor can it deprive persons
of any right to property which belonged to them at the date of said treaty.

A mere grant of land by the Mexican governor without compliance by the grantee
with the further requisitions of the Mexican laws forms but an inchoate title, and the
land passed to the United States, which hold it subject to the trust imposed by the treaty
And the equities of the grantee. The exgcution of the trust is a politicnl power. (Lesse w.
Clark, 3 Cal., 17.)

By the fundamental laws of 1824, the regulation of 1828, and the regulation of the de-
partmental legislature, one condition was that in making private grants of lands the
lands granted must be vacant lands. Lands occupied by and in possession of Indians
were not such vacant lands, for by the same laws and regulations it was provided that
«nch grants must be without prejudice or damage to the Indians, and that such land
granted to the damage and iiy ury of the Indians should be returned to the rightful own-
ers. (New Code, law 9, title 12, book 4. )

The Mexican authorities recognized the rights of Indians to hold, enjoy, and possess
lands, and there are of record a number of grants made by the Mexican authorities te
Indians. They not only had the right to receive grants of land under the Mexican laws,
but also to convey the lands so granted. (United States vs. Sinnol, Hofiinan's Reports,
110.)

It will be observed that at the date when private grants of land were made with somef
regard for law, the limitation and conditions required by law to be observed were in-
serted in such grants, viz: L. C, No. 34^-6, S. D., 398; L. C, No. 254-219, S. D., 228-
407; L. C, No. 740-372, N. D. 208; L. C, No. 326-359, N. D. 389; Hoffmanns Report land
<:aBe8, pp. 35 et seq. ; surveyor-general's letter, dated Sjeui Francisco, March 14, 1883, and
addressed to Mrs. Wm. S. Jackson.

The Indians and their descendants, who occupied and now occupy lands within the
grants above named, as well as grants containing claims of a similar character, are in our
opinion possessed and seized of the lands which were and have been and now are ia.
their possession, and they can hold the same against persons claiming the same by virtue

16

•f a United States patent, issued upon a confirmed Mexican grant. This leaves to be
answered the following question: Can the Indians hold lands for which a United States
patent has issued conditioned as set out in the first question, provided no conditions or
limitations are contained or expressed in the grant? This is a question beset' and sur-
rounded by many difficulties, nor do we deem it necessary to do more than refer to re-
strictions and limitations contained in the laws of Mexico concerning private grants of
lands upon which Indians were residing, lands which were occupied by them. It i»
certain that if such lands were granted by a Mexican official and the authorities omitted
to recite the conditions and limitations required by law, and reserve from the operation
of such grant such lands as the law conditioned could not be conveyed by such grant,
such a grant would and could not take it out of the ope&tion of the law. It could not
defeat the rights of those whose rights attached by reason of law. If the officers of ihe
Mexican Government to whom was confided the trust exceeded their authority as regu>
lated by the solemnities and formalities of the law, the courts are bound to take notice
of it and cannot shield those claiming under such title from the necessary consequence
•f ignorance, carelessness, or arbitrary assumption of power. (Lease & Vallejo vs. Clarke,
3CW., 17).

It is now necessary to inquire how far and to what extent will the issuance to the
grantee of the United States patent change or modify this rule. We shall not discuss,
as we do not deem it necessary, the decision of the United States Supreme Court that
''a United States patent cannot be attached <x>llaterally, but may be by a direct pro-
ceeding, " as we did not regard these decisions as in any way afiecting the question sub-
mitted and now before us.

In 1851, March 3, Congress passed an act entitled ^' An act to ascertain and settle the
private land claims in the State of California." By said statute it was enacted '' that
it shall be the duty of the commission herein provided for to ascertain and refwrt to the
Secretary of the Interior the tenure by which the Mission lands are held, and those held,
by civilize4 Indians, and those who are engaged in agriculture or labor of any kindj and
also those which are occupied and cultivated by Pueblos or Rancheros Indians. (U. S.
Statutes at lArge, vol. 9, p. 634, sec. 16, Little & Brown^s ed. ) We have no means of
aseertaming whether such a report was made, or if made, its contents. We have
no doubt the commission did their duty and complied with the law, and that their re-
I)ort will be found on file in the Department of the Interior. This report, if in our
hands, would greatly aid us in reaching a correct conclusion. By the same act it iff
further provided that the patent of the United States issued to parties holding Mexican
giants are conclusive between the United States and the said claimants only, and shall
not affect the interest of that person. (lb., p. 634). If the report of the commission
established the fact that the Indians were residing upon and occupying lands within the
boundaries of claimed grants, which grants have no conditions or lipiitation inserted
therein, that they claimed such lands by virtue of the laws of Mexico, thia evidence,
with such other evidence as we understand can be furnished, is in our opinion enough to
establish under the law, as we regard it, a right in the Indians to hold and occupy such
lands against the confirmee or patentee. If, however, no such report has been made,
we are of the opinion if conclusive evidence can be furnished proving that these Indiana
were in possession of these lands at the time these grants were made by the Mexican
authorities, that they continued in possession, and were in possession at the date of the
treaty, and have since continued in possession, the law will entitle them to hold such
land against all persons claiming under the patent.

We answer the second question propounded as follows :

By the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States it is provided :
* * * ** Nor shall private property be taken for public use withoutjust compensation.'^
Would the taking of lands belonging to citizens for the purpose of giving the same to
Indians be such a public use as is contemplated by the Constitution? We are of the
opinion it would not. (Walther vs. Warner, 26 Mo., 277; Board of Education vs. Hock-
man, 48 Mo., 243 ; Bufialo and New York Railroad Company vs. Brannan, 9 N. Y., 100 ;
Bradley vs. New York, &c., Railroad Ck>mpany, 21 Conn., 294; Fisher vs. Horicon Iron
Work, &c., Company, 10 Wis., 354; New Orleans and Railroad Company vs. Railroad
Oompaaijy 63 Ala., 211; Conn vs. Horrigan, 2 Allen, 169; Chambers vs. Sattuler, 40 Cal.,
4^; Ra&road Company t?8. City of Stockton, 41 Cal., 149; Channel Company t?8. Railroad
Company, 51 Cal., 269; Gilmer vs. Lime Point, 18 Cal., 229; Conn vs. Tewksbury, 11
Ket^f, 55; Manufacturing Company vs. Head, 56 N. H., 386; Olmstead vs. Camp, 33
Ootm., 632; Buckmanv8. Saratoga Railroad Company, 3 Paige Ch., 46; Memphis Freight
Company vs. Memphis, 4 Cold., 419; Enfield Toll Bridge Company vs. Hartford Railroad
Company, 17 Conn., 42.)

We are, very respectfiillv,

BRUNSON & WELLS,

Attorneys at Law^

Abbot Kinney, Esq., Lot< Angeles, CaJ.

17
Exhibit B.

SABOBA.

Saboba is the name of a village of Indians of the Serrano tribe, one hundred and fifty-
seven in number, living in the San Jacinto Valley, at the base of the San Jacinto Mount-
ains, in San Diego County. The village is within the boundaries of a Mexican grant,
patented to the heirs of J. Estudillo, January 17, 1880. The greater part of the grant
has been sold to a company which, in dividing up its lands, allotted the tract where the
Saboba village lies to one M. R. Byrnes, of San Bernardino, who proposes to eject the
Indians unless the United States Government will buy his whole tract of 700 acres at an
exorbitant price. The Saboba village occupies about 200 acres, the best part of Mr.
Bymes's tract. The Indians have lived in the place for over a hundred years. They
have adobe houses, fenced fields and orchards, and irrigating ditches. There is in the
village a never-failing spring, with a flow of about 25 miner's inches. It is claimed by
the Indians that the first surveys did not take in their village. This is probably true ;
the resurveying of grants and "floating " their lines so as to take in lands newly dis-
covered to be of value, and leave out others discovered to be worthless, being a common
practice in California. In a country where water is gold, such a spring as these Saboba
Indians owned could not long escape notice or be left long in the undisturbed possession
of Indians. These Indians support themselves now, and have always done so, by farm-
ing, and by going out in organized bands as sheep-shearers and vintagers. They are in-
dustrious and peaceable, and make in good seasons a fairly comfortable living. They
formerly kept stock, but since the new occupancy, allotting and fencing of the valley,
have been obliged to give it up. There is a Government school in this village, number-
ing from thirty to forty pupils, whq have made remarkable progress in their studies.
The school is taught by a Pennsylvania lady, formerly a teacher of the freedmen. Her
gentleness and refinement have excited an influence all through the village, and her self-
denying labors among the people in times of sickness and suffering have been the work
of a missionary rather than of a teacher. The following letters were written by two of
the children in this school, both under fourteen years of age. They were written with-
out the teacher's knowledge or aid, and brought to her with the request that she would
send them. The handwritings are clear and good :

To the President of the United States :

Mr. President — Dear Sir : I wish to write a letter for you, and I will try to tell you some thingfs.
The white people aill San Jacinto rancho their land, and I don't want them to do it. We think it
is ours, for God gave it to us first. Now 1 think you will tell me what is right, for you have been so
good to us, giving us a school and helping us. Will you not come to San Jacinto some time to see
us, the school, and the people of Saboba village ? Many of the people are sick, and some have died.
We are so poor that we have not enough good food for the sick, and sometimes I am afraid that we
are all going to die. Will you please tell what is good about our ranches, and come soon to see us.
Your friend,

RAMON CAVA VI.

Mrs. Jackson :

My Dear Friend: I wish to write you a letter about the American people that want to drive us
away from our own village of Saboba. I don't know what they can be about. I don't know why
they do so. My teacher told me she was very sorry about the town, and then my teacher said, I
think they will find a good place for you if you have to go ; but I do hope they will not drive you
away. Then it will be very good for all the people of Saboba. It is a very good town for the peo-
ple. They have all the work done on their gardens, and they are very sorry about the work that
is done. My work is very nicely done also. The people are making one big fence to keep the cows
and the horses off their garden.
Your true friend.

ANTONIO LEON.

These Saboba Indians are greatly dispirited and disheartened at the prospect of being
driven out of their homes, and feel that the Government ought to protect them. The
captain of the village, a very sensible and clear-headed man, said, "If the Government
says we must go, we must; but we would rather die right here than move." The right
of thase Indians to the tract they have so long occupied and cultivated is beyond ques-
tion. That this right could be successfully maintained in the courts is the opinion of
the law firm of Bruiison & Wells, whose admirable paper covering all cases of this kind
is given herewith. (See exhibit.)

We found 3 miles from this village on Government land a narrow canon called In-
dian Canon, in which half a dozen Indian families were living. The (^anon is but 5 or 6
miles long and very narrow; but it has a sm.ill, never-fiiiling brook in it, and some good
bottom land, on which the Indians had excellent wheat crops growing. The sides of it
are moderately well wooded. It was surprising that so desirable a nook had been over-
looked or omitted by the surveyors of the San Jacinto Ranch. We wrote to the Depart-

5690 M I 2

J

18

ment immediately recommending its being set aside for Indians' use. In another bean-
tifal caflon, also with a never-failing stream running through it, we found living the old
chief, Victoriano, nearly one hundred years old. The spot was an oasis of green, oak
and willow trees, a wheat field, and apricot orchard and vineyard, tbe latter planted by
Victoriano 's father. This place has been given by Victoriano to his grandson, who we
were told is taking steps to secure it to himself under the Indian homestead act.

Exhibit C.

THE CAHUILLA RESERVATION.

The Cahuilla Valley is about 40 miles from Saboba, high up among the peaks and
spurs of the San Jacinto Mountains; a wild, barren, inaccessible spot. The Cahuilla
village, situated here, was one of the most interesting that we visited, and the Indians
seemed a clear-headed, more individual and independent people than any other we saw.
This is partly due to their native qualities, the tribe having been originally one of the
most warlike and powerful in the country, as is indicated by their name, which signifies
*' master." The isolation of this village has also tended to keep these Indians self-re-
specting and independent. There is no white settlement within 10 miles, there being
comparatively little to tempt white men into these mountain-fastnesses. The popula-
tion of the village numbers from one hundred and fifty to two hundred. The houses
are of adobe, thatched with reeds; three of the houses have shingled roofs, and one has
the luxury of a floor. These Indians make the greater part of their living by stock-
raising. They also send out a sheep-shearing band each year. They have sixteen fields,
large and small, under cultivation, and said they would have had many more except for
the lack of plows, there being but one plow for the whole village. They raise wheat,
barley, com, squashes, and watermelons. Sometimes the frost kills the corn, and occa-
sionally the grasshoppers descend on the valley, but aside from these accidents their
crops do well. All through the village were to be seen their curious outdoor granaries —
huge baskets made of twisted and woven twigs and set up on poles. The women were
neatly dressed, the children especially so, and the faces of all, men, women, and chil-
dren, had an animation and look of intellectual keenness very uncommon among the
Southern California Indians. On the outskirts of the village is a never-failing hot spring.
In this water the Indians, old and young, are said to be continually bathing. It was
the Indians' impression that the lines of their reservation ran directly through the center
of this hot spring. They had been told so by some white men, but they know nothing
certainly. The lines had never been shown to them. On subsequent examination at
the surveyor-general's office in San Francisco we discovered that this spring and the vil-
lage itself are entirely outside the reservation lines; also that another Indian settlement
called Duasno, a few miles distant, and intended to have been included in the reserva-
tion, is outside the lines. The Cahuilla Reservation stands recorded as containing 26
sections of land; so far as we could judge of the region, it seemed to us a generous esti-
mate to say that there might be possibly 500 acres of cultivatable land in it. In good
years there would be considerable pasturage on the sides of the mountains; but far the
greater part of the tract is absolutely worthless, being bare and stony mountains. The
Cahuillas, however, are satisfied with it. They love the country and would not exchange
it for fertile valleys below. They said that they would be perfectly contented if the
Government would only mark their laud off" for them, and set up boundaries so that they
could know where they might keep their own stock and keep the white men's stock out.
All they asked for in addition to this was some harnesses, wagons, and agricultural imple-
ments, especially plows. Of these last the captain reiterated, and was not satisfied till
he saw the figures written down, that ten was the smallest number that would be suffi-
cient for the village.

A few rods from the hot spring there stood a good adobe house, shut up, unoccupied.
The history of this house is worth telling, as an illustration of the sort of troubles to
which Indians in these remote regions, unprotected by the Government, and unable to
protect themselves, are exposed. Some eight years ago the Cahuillas rented a tract of
their land as pasture to two Mexicans named Machado. These Machados, by permission
of the Indians, built this adobe house, and lived in it when looking after their stock.
At the expiration of the lease the house was to be the property of the Indians. When
the Machados left they said to the Cahuilla captain, " Here is your house." The next
year another man named Thomas rented a pasture tract from the Indians and also rented
this house, paying for the use of it for two years six bulls, and putting into it a man
named Cushman, who was his overseer. At the end of the two years Thomas said to the

19

Cahuillas, ** Here is your house; I now take my cattle away." But the man Cushman
refused to move out of the house; said it was on railroad land which he had bought of
the railroad company. In spite of the Indians' remonstrances ho lived on there for three
or four years. Finally he died. After his death his old employer, Thomas, who had
once rented this very house from the Indians, came forward, claimed it as his own, and
has now sold it to a man named Parks. Throujich all this time the Indians committed
no violence on the trespassers. They journeyed to Los Angeles to find out from the rail-
road company whether Cushman owned the land as he said, and were told that he did
not. They laid the matter before their ^ent, but he was unable to do anything about
it. It would seem of the greatest importance in the cose of this reservation, and of all
others similarly placed, that the odd section claimed or owned by the railroad companies
should be secured and added to the permanent reservation. Much further trouble will
in this way be saved.

An incident which had occurred on the boundaries of the Cahuilla Reservation a few
weeks before our arrival there is of importance as an illustration of the need of some
legal protection for the Indians in Southern California. A Cahuilla Indian named Juan
Diego had built for himself a house and cultivated a small patch of ground on a high
mountain ledge a few miles north of the village. Here he lived alone with his wife and
baby. He had been for some years what the Indians call a "locoed" Indian, being at
times crazy; never dangerous, but yet certainly insane for longer or shorter periods. His
condition was known to the agent, who told us that he had feared he would be obliged
to shut Juan up if he did not get better. It was also well known throughout the neigh-
boring country, as we found on repeated inquiry. Everybody knew that Juan Diego
was ' locoed." (This expression comes from the effect a weed of that name has upon
horses, making them wild and unmanageable.) Juan Diego had been off to find work
at sheep-shearing. He came home at night riding a strange horse. His wife exclaimed,
"Why, whose horse is that?" Juan looked at the horse, and replied confusedly, "Where
is my horse, then?" The woman, much frightened, said, "You must take that horse
right back; they will say you stole it." Juan replied that he would as soon as he had
rested ; threw himself down and fell asleep. From this sleep he was awakened by the
barking of the dogs, and ran out of the house to see what it meant. The woman fol-
lowed, and was the only witness of what then occurred. A white man, named Temple,
the owner of the horse which Juan had ridden home, rode up, and on seeing Juan poured
out a volley of oaths, leveled his gun and shot him dead. After Juan had fallen on the
ground Temple rode closer and fired three more shots in the body, one in the forehead,
one in the cheek, and one in the wrist, the woman looking on. He then took his horse,
which was standing tied in front of the house, and rode away. The woman, with her
baby on her back, ran to the Cahuilla village and told what had happened. This was in
the night. At dawn the Indians went over to the place, brought the murdered man's
body to the village, and buried it. The excitement was intense. The teacher, in giving
us an account of the affair, said that for a few days she feared she would be obliged to
close her school and leave the village. The murderer went to the nearest justice of the
peace and gave himself up, saying that he hiid in self-defense shot an Indian. He swore
that the Indian ran towards him with a knife. A jury of twelve men was summoned,
who visited the spot, listened to Temple's story^ pronounced him guiltless, and the judge
so decided. The woman's testimony was not taken. It would have been worthless if it
had been, so far as influencing that jury's minds was concerned. Her statement was pos-
itive that Juan had no knife, nor weapon of any kind ; sprang up from his sleep and ran
out hastily to see what had happened, and was shot almost as soon as he had crossed the
threshold of the door. The district attorney in San Diego, on being informed by us of
the facts in the case, reluctantly admitted that there would be no use whatever in bring-
ing a white man to trial for murder of an Indian under such circumstances, with only
Indian testimony to convict him. This was corroborated, and the general animus of public
feeling vividly illustrated to us by a conversation we had later with one of the jurors in the
case, a fine, open-hearted, manly young fellow, far superior in education and social stand-
ing to the average Southern California ranchman. He not only justified Temple's killing
the Indian, but said he would have done the same thing himself. "I don't care whether
the Indian had a knife or not," he said; "that didn't cut any figure at all the way I
looked at it. Any man that 'd take a horse of mine and ride him up that mountain
trail I'd shoot him whenever I found him. Stockmen have just got to protect them-
selves in this country." The fact that Juan had left his own horse, a well-known one,
in the corral from which he had taken Temple's; that he had ridden the straight trail to
his own door, and left the horse tied in front of it, thus making it certain that he would
be tracked and caught, weighed nothing in this young man's mind. The utmost con-
cession that he would make was finally to say, "Well, I'll agree that Temple was to
blame for firin' into him after he was dead. That was mean, I'll allow."

The account of our visit to the Cahuilla Reservation would be incomplete without a

■tp^Mi/-' -^ ivr- '^

20

brief description of the school there. It numbers from forty to fifty scholars, and is
taught by a widow who, with her little daughter ten years of age, lives in one small room
built on at the end of the school-house. Part of the room is curtained off into a recess
holding bed, washstand, and bureau. The rest of the room is a sitting-room, kitchen,
store-room, and barely holds the cooking stove, table, and chairs. Here alone, with her
little daughter, in a village of near two hundred Indians, 10 miles from any white man's
home, this brave woman has lived more than a year, doing a work of which the hours
spent in the school-room are the smallest part. The Indians come to her with every per-
plexity and trouble; call on her for nursing when they are ill; for food when they are
destitute. If she would allow it her little rocmi could always be crowded with women^
and men also, eager to wat<ih and learn. The Cahuillas have good brains, are keen,
quick, and persevering. The progress that these children have made in the compara-
tively short time since their school was opened was far beyond that ordinarily made by
white children in the same length of time. Children who two years ago did not know a
letter, read intelligently in the second and third readers, spelled promptly and with re-
markable accuracy, and wrote clear and legible hands, their copy-books being absolutely
free from blots or erasures; some of the older pupils went creditably through a mental
arithmetic examination, in which the questions were by no means easy to follow. They
sang songs in fair tune and time and with great spirit, evidently enjoying this part of
the exercises more than all the rest. We had carried to them a parcel of illustrated story
books, very kindly contributed by some of the leading publishers in New York and Bos-
ton, and the expression of the rows of bright dark eyes as the teacher held up book after
book was long to be remembered. The strain on the nervous system of teachers in such
positions as this can hardly be estimated by ordinary standards. The absolute isolation,
the ceaseless demand, the lack, not only of the comforts, but of many of the necessities
of life, all mount up into a burden which it would seem no woman could long endure.
Last winter there was a snow-storm in the Cahuilla Valley lasting two days and nights.
A fierce wind drove the dry snow in at every crevice of the poorly-built adobe house,
like sand in a sand-storm. The first day of the storm the school had to be closed early
in the day, as the snow fell so fast on books and slates nothing could be done. The last
night of the storm the teacher and her little girl spent the entire night in shoveling snow
out of the room. They would pile it in a blanket, open the door, empty the blanket,
and then resume shoveling. They worked hard all night to keep pace with the storm.
When the snowing stopped the school-room was drifted full and for many days after was
wet and damp. It would seem as if the school term in such places as this ought not to
be over eight months in the year. The salaries, however, should not be reduced, for
they are barely living salaries now, every necessary of life being procured at a great dis-
advantage in these wild regions. One of these teachers told us she had been obliged to
give an Indian $1 to ride to the nearest store and bring her one dollar's worth of sugar.
It was the opinion of the Cahuilla teacher (a teacher of experience at the East before her
marriage) that the Indians would accomplish more in eight months than in the nine. The
strain upon them also is too great — of the unwonted confinement and continuous brain
work. Should this change be made the vacation should be so arranged as to be taken at
the sheep-shearing season, at which times all the schools are much broken up by the ab-
sence of the elder boys.

Exhibit D.

THE WARNER'S RANCH INDIANS.

The tract known as Warner's Ranch lies in the northern part of San Diego County,
about 40 miles from the Cahuilla Valley. It contains two grants, the San Jos^ del Valle
and the Valle de San Jos^; the first containing between 26,000 and 27,000 a«res, con-
firmed to J. J. Warner, patented January 16, 1880; the second, containing between 17,000
and 18,000 acres, confirmed to one Portilla, patented January 10, 1880. The whole
property is now in the possession of Governor Downey, of Los Angeles. There are said
to be several conflicting claims yet unsettled. The ranch is now used as a sheep and
stock ranch, and is of great value. It is a beautiful region, well watered and wooded.
There are within its boundaries five Indian villages, of San Luisenos and Diegmons:
Aqua Caliente, Puerta de la Cruz, Puerta de San Jos(', San Jos^', and Mataguay. The
last four are very small, but Aqua Caliente has long been the most flourishing and influ-
enti«al village in the country. It was formerly set apart- as a reservation, but the execu-
tive order was canceled January 17, 1880, immediately after the patenting of the San Jos6
del Valle ranch, within the boundaries of which it was then claimed that the village lay,
although to the best information we could get the first three surveys of that ranch did not

21

take the village in. The aged captain of the Aqua Caliente Indians still preserves a paper
giving a memorandum of the setting off of this reservation of about 1,120 acres for this
people. It was by executive order, 1875. He also treasures several other equally worth-
less papers — a certificate from a San Diego judge that the Indians are entitled to their
lands; a memorandum of a promise from General Kearney, who assured them that in con-
sideration of their friendliness and assistance to him they should retain their homes
without molestation, "although the whole State should fill with white men." It is not
to be wondered at that these Aqua Caliente Indians find it difficult to-day to put any
faith in white men's promises.

It will be seen from the above brief statement of the situation that they have an ex-
ceedingly strong claim on the Oovernment for protection in their right to their lands.
Since the restoration of their village and fields **to the public domain," the patenting
of the ranches and their sale to Governor Downey, the Indians have been in constant
anxiety and terror. Governor Downey has been considerate and liumane in his course
toward them, and toward all the Indians on his estate. And his superintendent also is
friendly in his treatment of them, permitting them all the liberty he can consistently
with his duty to the ranch. He finds their labor invaluable at sheep-shearing time, and
is able throughout the year to give them occasional employment. But the Indians
know very well that according to the usual course of things in San Diego County they
are liable any day to be ejected by process of law; and it is astonishing that under the
circumstances they have so persevered in their industries of one sort and another. They
have a good number of fields under cultivation. They also make saddle mats and hats
out of fibrous plants; the women make baskets and lace. It is said to be the most in-
dustrious village in the county; the old captain dealing severely with any Indian found
idle. They have also a small revenue from the hot springs, from which the village takes
its name. These bubble up in a succession of curious stone basins in the heart of the
village. They are much resorted to in summer by rheumatic and other patients, who
rent the Indians' little adobe houses and pay them a small tiix for the use of the waters.
The Indians themselves at these times move into bush huta in a valley or cafion some
two %iiles above the village, where their chief cultivated fields lie. They were very
earnest to know from us if we would lulvise their planting more of this ground. They
said they would have planted it all exce])t that they were afraid of being driven away.
This upper valley and these planting fields were said to be on Government land; but on
examination of the surveyor's plats in the Los Angeles land office, we could find no field
notes to indicate their location. These Indians have in use another valley called Ix)8t
Valley, some fifteen miles from their village high up in the mountains, and reached only
by one very steep trail. Here they keep their stock, being no longer able to pasture it
below. They were touchingly anxious to have us write down the numbers of cattle,
horses, sheep each man had and report to Washington that the President might see how
they were all trying to work. Tliere are prol^ably from one hundred and twenty -five to
one hundred and fifty head of ctittle owned in the village, about fifty horses, and one
hundred sheep.

There is here a Government school, taught by a young German lady of excellent edu-
cation and much enthusiasm in her work. At great cost and risk she has carried her
piano up into these wilds, and finds it an invaluable assistance in training and influenc-
ing her pupils. It was a scene not to be forgotten, when after their exercises in reading
arithmetic, <fec., in all of which they showed a really wonderful proficiency, the children
crowded into the teacher's little room and sang their songs to the piano accompaniment,
played by her with spirit and feeling. ' ' My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, ' '
was the song they seemed to like best; all unaware how little applicable to their own
situation were its strains of exultant joy and freedom. In this one tiny room adjoining
the school-room this young lady lives, sleeps, prepares her own food, frequently having
a "cooking class " of Indian women, whom she is teaching to make soups, bread, &c.,
and to do fine washing. It is impossible to put too much appreciative sympathy on these
women teachers in Indian schools in Southern California. Their situation and their work
are unique in isolation and difficulty.

The other Indian villages on Warner's ranch do not demand separate description, con-
sisting of not more than half a dozen houses each and numbering only from fifteen to
thirty Indians. Each village, however, has its own captain, and its cultivated fields,
orchards, &c., to which the Indians are profoundly attached, and from which it would
be very hard to induce them to move, spite of their poverty, and the difficulty of making
a living, as they are now placed.

During our stay at Warner's ranch, the captain of the San Jos6 village had an expe-
rience which will illustrate the heli)lessness of these Indian farmers in Southern Cali-
fornia. He had on a piece of Government land, a short distance from his village, a fenced
wheat field of some fifty acres ; it was his chief dependence for his year's support. Going
away one day, he left his aged father in charge at home ; the old man wandered away,

«-j»»**: *■'■ ".'^-'™'

22

and during his absence one of the roving sheep herders, of whom the country is full,
broke down the fence, turned in his flock, and when Domingo came home at night the
whole field was eaten close to the ground. Hearing of our being at the superintendent's
house Domingo came over to ask if we could help him in the matter. The quiet, matter-
of-course way in which he told the story was more impressive than any loudness of com-
plaint would have been. He said very simply, "What can I do for food this winter ?'^
Mr. Kinney rode over to the village, saw the field, and alter some trouble found the
herder, who, much frightened, said he did it by his master's orders. This master, an
Italian, lived some 20 miles away, the nearest justice of the peace, 16 miles. On seeing
the justice we found that nothing could be done in the way of securing damages from
the sheep owner, until two white men, residents of the county should inspect the prem-
ises and estimate the damages. Domingo rode 16 miles in the night in a fierce storm
of sleet and rain, with letters from us to white men on the ranch, asking them to do
this. He was back again at daylight witli a note from one of them, saying that he could
not induce a man to go with him. Finally, the j ustice, at our request, hired two men
at days' wages to go and inspect the Indian's field. They estimated the damages at
about one-tenth of the real amount, and thus we were obliged to leave the matter. We
afterwards received a letter from the Italian stating that he had settled with Domingo,
but not mentioning the sum paid. It was plain that except for our taking hold of the
affair the Indian would never have recovered a cent. This is by no means an excep-
tional instance.

Exhibit E.

THE SAN YSIDRO INDIANS.

In the San Ysidro Cafion, about 8 miles from Warner's ranch, has bten living from
time immemorial a band of San Luiseno Indians, numbering from fifty to seventy-five,
and called by the name of their canon. We first saw the captain of these Indians in
Los Angeles, in the office of the United States court commissioner, Mr. H. T. Lee, of
whose kindness and humane sympathy in dealing with all Indian matters which come
under his notice it is not out of place here to make grateful mention. This Captain Pablo,
with two of his headmen, had walked a three days' journey to Los Angeles to see if he
could get. any help in the matter of lands which had been wrested from his people. His
story was a pitiful one. Some six years ago a white man named Chatham Helm had
come in at the head of their canon, three miles above the site of their village, taken up
a homestead claim there, cutting oif the greater part of their water supply and taking
some of their cultivated fields, and leaving them restricted room for their stock. Since
that time they had been growing poorer and poorer, but had managed to live by culti-
vating lands below the village near the mouth of the canon, where there was anothe
small stream. But now a new squatter had appeared below them and filed on all the
remaining lands, including the site of the village itself. The man Helm, above them,
had patented his lands, built a good house, and was keeping considerable stock. The
Indians could have no water except what he permitted to come down the canon.
Three years ago one of their number had been shot dead by Helm who was set free on
the usual plea of self defense. Since then the Indians had been in continual terror. 1'he
new squatter had threatened them with the same fate if they came near his inclosures.
Between these two squatters the Indian village was completely hemmed in and cut off
and starvation stared them in the lace. In fact, in the course of the last winter one
little girl had actually died for want of food. Their countenances conoborated the tale.
They were gaunt with hunger and full of despair. It would exceed the limits of this
paper to give a tiill report of the interview with these Indians. It will not soon be for-
gotten by any one taking part in it — the solenm tones in which the Indians replied to
the interpreter's questions, the intent and imploring gaze with which they studied all
our faces and listened to all the words unintelligible to them in which we spoke with
one another.

It was finally decided to forward to the Interior Department the affidavits of these In-
dians, setting forth the manner in which they had been robbed of their lands, and request-
ing that Cloos's entry be held for cancellation, and that Helm's patent be reopened.
It was found, on looking the matter up in Washington, that several years ago this caiion
had been withdrawn from market with a view to having it set ofi' as a reservation
for the Indians living in it, but the matter had slipped everybody's mind. On visiting
the San Ysidro Cafion ourselves a few weeks later, we found that Cloos, taking time by
the forelock, had sold out his homestead claim, his house, and what he was pleased to

23

call his ** improvenients," for $600 to a poor old widow, Mrs. Pamela Hagar by name.
We found Mrs. Hagar, with her son, on the ground, preparing to go into the bee busi-
ness. She appeared very little surprised at hearing that the claim she had bought was
a questionable one, remarking : '* Well, I mistrusted something was wrong ; Cloos seemed
in such a hurry to get his money." This woman appeared nearly as helpless as the
Indians themselves. The deed she had taken froAi Cloos was not acknowledged ; she
had not got it recorded ; her name was misspelled in it ; and the enumeration of the sec-
tions, &c., in it did not agree with the list in the land oflice certificate. She begged
us to ask the Government to refund to her the sum she had paid to Cloos, and signed
by her mark a paper saying she would accept it. It is a small sum, and as the poor old
woman made the transaction in good faith, knowing nothing about the Indians' presence
on the place, it would seem not unreasonable that she should be paid. The next morn-
ing Cloos himself appeared on the scene, very angry and resentful. He said he had " a
perfect right to file on that land"; that ** Indians were not citizens" and "had no right
to public lands," and that "the stockmen of San Diego County were not going to stand
the Indians' killing their stock much longer" ; that " the Government ought to put the
Indians all together somewhere and take careot them," and that " there' d be a big fight
with Indians in San Diego County before long, we might rest assured of that"; and
much more of the same sort, which would not be worth repeating, except that it is a
good illustration of the animus of the greater portion of Southern California ranchmen
towards Indians. A few days after this we were gladdened by the news from Washing-
ton that Cloos's filing was held for cancellation, and that the Attorney-General had or-
dered proceedings to be begun in San Francisco for the vacating of Chatham Helm's pat-
ent. A few instances of such promptitude as this would change the whole status of the
South California Indians, giving courage to them, and, what is still more important,
making it clear to the perception of white men that the Indians' rights are no longer to
be disregarded as they have been.

Exhibit F.

THE LOS COYOTES.

Five miles up from the head of the San Ysidro Canon, to be reached only by a steep
and narrow trail, lies a small valley on the desert side of the mountains. It is little
more than a pocket on a ledge. From its rim one looks down directly into the desert.
Few white men have ever penetrated to it, and the Indians occupying it have been
hitherto safe, by reason of the poverty and inaccessibility of their home. No agent has
ever visited them ; they have supported themselves by keeping stock and cultivating
their few acres of land. There are not more than 80 acres all told in the valley. About
three weeks before our arrival at Warner's ranch a man named Jim Fane, a comrade of
Helm, who had usurped the San Ysidro Canon, having, no doubt, learned through Helm
of the existence of the Los Coyotes Valley, appeared in the village and oftered the Indians
$200 for their place. They refused to sell, upon whi(;h he told them that he had filed
on the land, should stay in any event, and proceeded to cut down trees and build a cor-
ral. It seems a marvelous forbciirance on the part of a (community numbering twenty-
six able-bodied men and twenty-one women not to take any forcible measures to repel
such an intruder as this. But the South California Indians have learned by long experi-
ence that in any contest with white men they are sure to be found in the wrong. Not
an Indian laid violent hands on Fane. He seems to have gone about as siifely in the
heart of this Indian village, which he was avowedly making ready to steal, as if he had
been in an empty wilderness. Mr. Kinney found him there, hard at work, his belt full
of cartridges and pistols. He was a rough fellow, at first disposed to be defiant and
blustering, but on being informed of the Department's action in the case of Cloos's filing,
he took a milder tone, and signed a paper saying that he would take $75 for his " im-
provements." Later in the day, after consulting with his friend Helm, he withdrew the
paper and announced his determination to stay in the valley. On inquiry at the land
ofiice at Los Angeles we found that his filing had been returned to him for correction of
errors. We were therefore in time to secure the stopping of all further proceedings on
his part through the land office. Nothing, however, but authorized and authoritative
action on the part of the agent representing the Interior Department will stop his pro-
ceedings on the ground. JiLst before leaving California we received an urgent letter from
the I^s Coyotes' ciiptain, saying that Fane was still there — still cutting down their trees
and building corrals.

The Indians of this band are robust, active, and finely made, more nearly in the
native health and strength of the race than any other band in the country. The large

oSK^.;^- ■•

24

proportion of children also bore testimony to their healthful condition, there being
thirty-five children to twenty-one women and twenty-six men. The captain had the
lists of his people kept by three lines of notches on a stick, a new notch being made for
each birth and crossed out for each death. They could count only up to five. Every-
thing beyond that was ' ' many. ' ' Their houses were good, built of hewn pine timber
with thatched roofs made from some tough fibrous plant, probably the yucca. Each
house had a thatched bower in front of it and stood in a fenced inclosure. These In-
dians raise beans, pumpkins, wheat, barley, and corn. They have twenty-five head of
cattle and more horses. They say they have lived in this valley always and never desire
to leave it. The only things they asked for were a harness, chain, coulter, and five
plows. They have now one plow.

This village is one of the best illustrations of our remarks on the need of itinerary
labor among the Mission Indians. Here is a village of eighty-four souls living in a mount-
ain fastness which they so love they would rather die than leave it, but where the ordi-
nary agencies and influences of civilization will never reach, no matter how thickly set-
tled the regions below may come. A fervent religious and practical teacher spending a
few weeks each year among these Indians might sow seed that would never cease grow-
ing during the intervals of his absence.

Exhibit G.

THE SANTA YSABEL RANCH.

The Santa Ysabel ranch is adjoining to Warner's ranch. It is a well wooded, well
watered, beautiful country, much broken by steep and stony mountains. The original
grant of this ranch was confirmed March 17, ISoS, to one Jose Ortego and the heirs of
Edward Stokes. The patent was issued May 14, 1872. It is now owned by a Captain
Wilco i, who hiis thus far not only left undisturbed the Indian village within the b oun-
daries of his estate, but has endeavored to protect the Indians by allowing to the ^anch
lessee a rebate of $200 yearly on the rent on account of the Indians' occupancy. There
is in the original grant of this ranch the following clause: "The grantees will leave free
and undisturbed the agricultural lands which the Indians of San Diego are actually oc-
cupying."

We found on arriving at the Santa Ysabel village that an intelligent young Indian
living there had recently been elected as general over the Dieguiuo Indians iw the
neighborhood. He showed to us his papers and begged us to wait till he could have all
his captains gathered to meet us. Eight villages he reported as being under his control,
Santa Ysabel, Mesa Grande, Mesa Chiquita, San Jose, Mataguay, La Puertii, Laguna,
and Anaha. He was full of interest and inquiry and enthusiasm about his people. "I
want know American way," he said in his broken English. "I want make all my peo-
ple like American people. How I find out American laws? When white men lose cow,
lose pig, they come here with pistol and say we must find or give up man that stole.
How we know? Is that American law? We all alone out here. We got nobody show
us. Heap things I want ask about. I make all my people work. We can't work like
American people ; we ain't got work with; we ain't got wagon, harness ; three old
broked plows for all these people. What we want, some man right here to go to.
While you here white man very good; when you go away trouble same as before."

There are one hundred and seventy-one Indians in this village. They are very poor.
Many of their houses are of tule or brush, their clothes were scanty and ragged, some
of the older men wearing but a single garment. That they had not been idle their big
wheat field proved; between three and four hundred acres fenced and the wheat well up.
*'How do you divide the crops?" we asked. "Every man knows his own piece," was
the reply. They sell all of this wheat that they can spare to a storekeeper some three
miles away. Having no wagon they draw the wheat there on a sort of sledge or wood
triangle, about four feet long, with slats across it. A rope is tied to the apex of this,
then fastened to the horn of a saddle on a horse ridden by a man, who steers the sledge
as best he may. The Indians brought this sledge to show us, to prove how sorely they
needed wagons. They also made the women bring out all the children and arrange
them in rows, to show that they had enough for a school, repeating over and over that
they had many more, but they were all out digging wild roots and vegetables. * ' If
there was not great many them, my people die hungry," said the general; "them
most what we got eat." It is a sore grievance to these Santa Ysabel Indians that the
Aqua Caliente Indians, only twenty miles away, have received from the Government a
school, plows, wagons, &c., while nothing whatever has been done for them. "Them
Aqua Caliente Indians got everything," said the general; "got hot springs too; make
money on them hot springs; my people got no chance make money."

25

On the second day of our stay in this region we saw four of the young general's cap-
tains, those of Puerta San Felipe, San Jos6, Anaha, and Laguna. In Puerta San Felipe
are sixty-four people. This village is on a confirmed grant, the ** Valle de San Felipe,"
confirmed to Felipe Castillo. The ranch is now leased to a Frenchman, who is taking
away the water from the Indian village, and tells the captain that the whole village
belongs to him, and that if anybody so much as hunts a rabbit on the place he will put
him in prison. These people are in great destitution and trouble, being deprived of
most of their previous means of support. The Anaha captain reported fift3^-three people
in his village. White men had come in and fenced up land on both sides of him.
*'When he plants his wheat and grain the white men run their hogs into the^elds";
and "when the white men find anj'^thing dead they come to him to make him tell every-
thing about it, and he has not got anything to tell." The San Jos^ captain had a sim-
ilar story. The Laguna captain was a tall, swarthy, well-to-do-looking Indian, so unlike
all the rest that we wondered what there could have been in his life to produce such a
difierence. He said nobody troubled him. He had good land, plenty of water, raised
grain and vegetables, everything he wanted except watermelons. His village contained
eleven persons; was to be reached only by a steep trail, the last four miles. We ex-
pressed our pleasure at finding one Indian ciiptain and village that were in no trouble
and wanted for nothing. He smiled mysteriously, as we afterward recalled, and reiter-
ated that nobody troubled him. The mystery was explained later, when we discovered
accidentally in San Diego that this Laguna village had not escaped, as we supposed, the
inroads of white men, and that the only reason that the Laguna Indians were not in
trouble was that they had peaceably surrendered half their lands to a white man, who
was li^^ng amicably among them under a sort of contract or lease.

Exhibit H.

MESA GRANDE.

Mesa Grande lies high up above the Santa Ysabel village and 15 miles west of it.
The tract adjoins the Santa Ysabel ranch, and is, as its name indicates, a large table
land. There was set off here in 1876 a large reservation, intended to include the Mesa
Grande Indian village, and also a smaller one of Mesa Chilquita; but, as usual, the vil-
lages were outside of the lines, and the lands reserved were chiefly worthless. One of
the settlers in the neighborhood told us he would not take the whole reservation as a
gift and pay the taxes on it. The situation of the Indians here is exceedingly unfortu-
nate and growing more and more so daily. The good Mesa Grande lands, which they
once owned and occupied, and which should have been secured to them, have been fast
taken up by whites, the Indians driven off, and, as the young general said, ' ' all bunched
up till they haven't got any room. ' ' Both the Mesa Chilquita and Mesa Grande plateaus
are now well under cultivation by whites, who have good houses and large tracts
fenced in.

They have built a good school-house, which we chanced to pass at the hour of recess,
*nd noting Indian faces among the children, stopped to inquire about them. There were,
out of twenty-seven scholars, fifteen Indians or half-breeds, some of them, the children
of Indians who had taken up homesteads. We asked the teacher what was the relative
brightness of the Indian and white children. Supposing that we shared the usual
prejudice against Indians, the teacher answered ina judiciously deprecating tone, "Well,
really there isn't so much difference between them as you would suppose." "In favor
of which ra(re?" we asked. Thus suddenly enlightened as to our animus in the matter,
the teacher changed his tone, and said he found the Indian children full as bright as the
whites; in fact, the brightest scholar he had was a half-breed girl.

On the census list taken of Indians in 1880 Mesa Grande and Mesa Chilquita are re-
ported as having, the first, one hundred and three Indians, the second, twenty-three.
There are probably not so many now, the Mesa Chilquita tract being almost wholly in
possession of the whites. The Mesa Grande village has a beautiful site on a small stream,
in a sort of hill basin, surrounded by higher hills. The houses are chiefly adobe, and
there is on one of the slopes a neat little adobe chapel, with a shingled roof nearly done,
of which the Indians were very proud. There were many fields of grain and a few
fruit orchards. The women gathered around our carriage in eager groups, insisting on
shaking hands, and holding up their little children to shake hands also. They have but
once seen an agent of the Government, and any evidence of real interest in them and
their welfare touches them deeply.

«■- •-*:'

26

The .condition of the Indians in this district is too full of complications and troubles
to be written out here in detail. A verbatim copy of a few of our notes taken on the
spot will give a good picture of the situation..

Chrysanto, an Indian, put off his farm two months ago by white m^an named Jim Angel, with
certificate of homestead from Los Angeles land office. Antonio Douro, another, put off in same
way from his farm near school-hojise. He had built good wooden house ; the white man took that
and half his land. He was plowing when the white man came and said "get out ! I have bought
this land." They have been to the agent. They have been ten times, till they are tired to go. An-
other American named Hardy ran an Indian off his farm, built a house on it, then he sold it to
Johnson and Johnson took a little more land and Johnson sold it to Stone, and he took still more.
They use^ to be well fixed, had plenty of stock, and hundreds of horses. Now they are all penned
up, and have had to pay such fines they have got poor. Whites take their horses and cattle and
corral them and make them pay 25 cents, 50 cents to get them out. " Is that American law?" they
asked: "and if it is law for Indians' horses is it not same for white men's horses?" But one In-
dian .shut up some of the white men's horses that came on his land, and the constable came and
took them all away and made the Indian pay money. The Americans so thick now they want all
the Indians away, so to make them go they keep accusing them of stealing.

This is a small tithe of what we were told. It was pitiful to see the hope die out
of the Indians' faces as they laid grievance aftergrievancebeforeus, and we were obliged
to tell them we could do nothing, except to *' tell the Government." On our way back
to Santa Ysabel we were waylaid by several Indians, some of them very aged, each with
the same story of having been driven off or being in imminent danger of being driven
off his lands.

On the following day we had a long interview with one of the white settlers of Mesa
Grande, and learned some particulars as to a combination into which the Mesa Grande
whites had entered to protect themselves against cattle and horse thieves. The young
Indian general was present at this interview. His boots were toeless; he wore an old
gingham shirt and ragged waistcoat, but his bearing was full of dignity. According to
the white man's story, this combination was not a vigilance committee at all. It was
called *' The Protective League of Mesa Grande," and had no special reference to Indi-
ans in any way. According to the Indian general's story it was a vigilance committee,
and sSl the Indians knew very well that their lives were in danger from it. The white
man protested against this and reiterated his former statements. To our inquiry why,
if the league were for the mutual protection of all cattle owners in the region, the cap-
tains of the Indian villages were not invited to join it, he replied that he himself would
have been in favor of that, but that to the average white settler in the region such a
suggestion would be like a red rag to a bull. That he himself, however, was a warm
friend to the Indians. *' How long you been friend to Indians ?" fisked the boy-general
with quiet sarcasm. We afterwards learned by inquiry of one of the most influential
citizens of a neighboring town, that this protective league was in fact nothing more or
less than a vigilance committee, and that it meant short shrift to Indians; but being be-
trayed by one of its members it had come to an untimely end, to the great relief of all
law-abiding people in the vicinity. He also added that the greater part of the cattle
and horse stealing in the region was done by Mexicans and whites, not by Indians.

Whether it is possible for the Government to put these Mesa Grande Indians into a
position to protect themselves, and have anything like a fair chance to make their living
in their present situation, is a question; but that it ought to be done, if possible, is be-
yond question. It is grievous to think that this fine tract of land so long owned and
occupied by these Indians, and in good faith intended by the Government to be set aside
for their use, has thus passed into other hands. Even if the reservation tract, some
three hundred acres, has been by fraudulent representations restored to the public do-
main, and now occupied by a man named Clelland, who has taken steps to patent it,
the tract by proper investigation and action could probably be reclaimed for the Indians'
use .

Exhibit I.

CAPITAN GRANDE.

Capitan Grande is the name of the caiion through which the San Diego River comes
down from the Cuyumaca Mountains, where it takes its rise. The canon is thirty-five
miles from the city of San Diego; is fifteen miles long, and has narrow bottom lands alpng
the river, in some placas widening out into good meadows. It is in parts beautifully
wooded and full of luxuriant growths of shrubs and vines and flowering plants. In 1853
a band of Dieguino Indians were, by the order of Lieutenant Magruder, moved from San
Diego to this caiion (see paper No. 1, appended hereto). These Indians have continued
ever since to live there, although latterly they have been so much pressed upon by white
settlers that their numbers have been reduced. A large resers^ation, showing on the

27

record nineteen full sections, was set off here, in 1876, for these Indians. It is nearly all
on the bare sides of the mountain walls of the canon. As usual, the village site was
not taken in by the lines. Therefore white settlers have come in and the Indians
been driven away. We were informed that a petition was in circulation for the restora-
tion to the public domain of a part of this reservation. We could not succeed in find-
ing a copy of this petition ; but it goes without saying that any such petition means the
taking away from the Indians the few remaining bits of gooil land in their possession.
There are now only about sixty Indians left in this ciiilon. Sixteen years ago there
were from one hundred and fifty to two hundred — a flourishing community with large
herds of cattle and horses and good cultivated fields. It is not too late for the Govern-
ment to reclaim the greater part of this canon for its rightful owners' use. The ap-
pended affidavits, which we forwarded to Washington, will show the grounds on which
we earnestly recommended such a course.

Paper No. 1.
Copy of Colonel Magruder's order locating the Indians in Capitan Grande.

Mission San Diego, February 1, 1883.

Permission is hereby given to Patricio and I^andro, alcalde and captain, to cultivate and live at
the place culled Capitan Grande, about four leagues to the south and east of Santa Ysabel,as it is
with extreme difficulty that these Indians can gain a subsistence on the lands near the mission in
consequence of the want of suflicient water for irrigation. It is understood that this spot, called, as
above, Capitan Grande, is a part of the public domain. All persons are hereby warned against dis-
turbing or interfering with the said Indians, or their people, in the occupation or cultivation of said
lands. Any complaints in reference to said cultivation or to the right of occupancy must be laid be-
fore the commanding officer of this post, in the absence of the Indian agent for this part of the
country.

(Signed by Colonel Magruder.)

Paper No. 2.

Copy of affidavit of the captain of Capitan Grande Indians and one of his head men.

State of California,

County of San Diego :

In the application of Daniel C. Isham, James Meade, Mary A. Taylor, and Charles Ilensley.

Ignacio Curoand Marcellino, being duly sworn by methrough an interpreter, and the words being
interpreted to each and every one of them, each for himself deposes and says :

" I am an Indian belonging to that portion of the Dieguino Indians under the captainship of Ig-
nacio Curo. and residing in the rancheria of Capitan Grande, l>cing also a part and portion of the
Indian people known as Mis.sion Indians; our said rancheria was located at(*apitan Grande, where
we all now resitle in A. D. 1853, by an order issued by Colonel Magruder, of the United States Army,
located at the post of San Diego on F'ebruary 1 of said year, IK.5.3. That since that time we and our
families have resided on and possessed said lands. That said lands are inchuled in township 14
south, range 2 east, of San Bernardino meridian in San Diego County. State of California.

That affiants are informed and believe that Daniel C. Ishani, James Meade, Mary A. Taylor, and
Charles Ilensley have each of them filed in the land office of Los Angeles their application for pre-
emption or homestead of lands included in the lands heretofore possessed by affiants, and now oc-
cupietl by the rancheria of affiants as a home for themselves and families. That said affiants and
their tribe have constantly occupied and partly cultivated the land so claimed by said Isham,
Meade. Taylor, and Hensley since the year 185.3. That they nor their tribe have ever signed any
writing yielding possession or abandoning their rights to said lan<ls; but that wiid parties hereto-
fore mentioned are attempting by deceit, fraud, and violence to obtain said lands from affiants and
the (fovernnient of the I'nited States. Affiants therefore pray that the land officers of the United
States Government will protect them in their right and stay all proceedings on th<' part of said claim-
ants until the matter is thoroughly investigated and the rights of the respective parties adjudicated.

IGNACIO CURO, his + mark.
MARCELLINO, his -f mark.

Witness : M. A. Luce.

Paper No. 3.

Copy of affidavit of Anthony D. Ubach. in regard to Capitan Grande Indians, and in the matter of
the application of Daniel Isham, James Meade. Mary A. Taylor, and Charles Ilensley.

Anthony D. Ubach, being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says: I am now. and have been
continuously for the last seventeen years. Catholic pa.stor at San Diego, and have freciuently made
offieial visitations to the various Indian villages or rancherias in said county; that I have frecjuently
during said time visited the Capitan Grande Rancheria. on the San Die*go River, in said county
of San Diego; that when I first visited said ran<heria, some seventeen years ago, the Inrlians be-
longing to the rancheria cultivated the valley lielow the falls on the San Diego River and herded
and kept their .stofk as far up as said falls; that I know the place now occupied and claimed by the
above-named applicants and each of thcmj and also the i)la<e occupied and claimed by Dr. D. W.
Strong; that from the time I first visited said raneheria until the lands were occupied by the afore-
said white men said lands were occupfed. cultivated, and used by the Indians of Capitan Grande
Rancheria as a part of their rancheria: that upon one occasion I acted as interpreter for (^apitan
Ignacio Curo in a negotiation between said Capitan Ignacio and D. W. Strong, and that said Strong
at that time rented from said Ignacio a i)ortion of the rancheria lands for bee i>asture; I also know
that Capt. A. P. Knowles and A. S. Grant also rented the lands from the Indians of the rancheria
when they first located there.

ANTHONY D. UBACH.

San Dieoo, State of California.

f^tet^ff^^if'fef^^^-^ ' J-- - * ; --'^^

28

Paper No. 4,

Copy of the deposition of J. S. Manasse in the matter of the Capitan Qrande Indians and the appli*
cation of Daniel Isham, James Meade, Mary A. Taylor, and Charles Hensley.

State of California,

San Diego County:

J. S. Manasse, being first duly sworn, on oath deposes and says : I am now, and have been con-
tinuously since the year 1853, a resident of said county of San Diego ; that I have known these cer-
tain premises on the San Diego River, said county, known as the Capitan Grande Rancheria, since
the year 1856 ; that at that time and for many years thereafter the Indians belonging to said Capitan
Grande Rancheria occupied and cultivated their fields as far up as the falls on the San Diego River;
that the premises now occupied by the above-named applicants were so occupied and cultivated by
the Indians belonging to said rancheria during the time aforesaid ; I know that about one year ago
Capt. A. P. Knowles paid rent to Ignacio Curo for a portion of the land now claimed by the above-
named applicant, Charles Hensley ; also that when I first knew of the rancheria and for many years
thereafter the Indians of that rancheria owned and kept there a considerable number of cattle,
horses, and sheep.

J. S. MANASSE.

The lands above referred to as claimed by Dr. D. W. Strong were patented by him
September 15, 1882. They include all the lands formerly cultivated by the Indians
and used for stock pasturage at the head of the canon. When, at the expiration of his
first year's lease of the tract for bee pasturage, the Indians asked if he wished to renew
the lease he informed them that he should stay and file on the land. His lines are as
follows: N. E. ] of N. E. i, S. i of N. E. }, and N. W. J of S. E. J, Sec. 2, T. 14 S.,
R. 2 E., S. B. M., Home. No. 969.

Charles Hensley 's homestead entry is as follows: No. 986, March 29, 1882. S. } of N.
W. i and W. J of S. W. J, Sec. 22, T. 14 S., R. 2 E., S. B. M. This is on the original site
of the Indian village, and Hensley is living in Capitan Ignacio Curo's house, for which,
after being informed that he had to leave it at any rate and might as well get a little
money for it, Ignacio took a small sum of money.

James Meade's entry, which included Mary Taylor's interest, is as follows: No. 987,
March 29, 1882. N. i of N. W. ^ and N. ^ of N. E. J, Sec. 22, T. 14 S., R. 2 E., S. B. M.
Captain Knowles's lines we did not ascertain. He claims and in one way or another oc-
cupies several tracts in the cafion.

Exhibit J.

THE SEQUAN INDIANS.

The Sequa Indians are a small band of Dieguino Indians living in a rift of the hills
on one side of ^he Sweetwater Canon, about twenty miles from San Diego. There are
less than fifty of them all told. They are badly off, having for the last ten years been
more and more encroached on by white settlers, until now they can keep no cattle, and
have little cultivable land left. There is a small reservation of one section set off for
them, but the lines were never pointed out to them, and they said to us they did not
know whether it were true that they had a reserv^ation or not. They had heard also that
there was an agent for the Indians, but they did not know whether that were true or not.
/ s nearly as we could determine, this village is within the reservation lines; and if it is,
some of the fields which have been recently taken away from the Indians by the whites
must be also. They had the usual bundle of tattered * ' papers ' ' to show, some of which
were so old they were hardly legible. One of them was a certificate from a justice of the
peace in San Diego, setting forth that this justice, by virtue of power in him vested by
the California State law, did

permit hereby all these Indians to occupy peaceably and without disturbance all the certain land
and premises heretofore occupied and held by these Indians aforesaid, including all their right and
title to all other necessary privileges thereto belonging, mainly the water necessary for the irriga-
tion of their lands.

These Indians are much dispirited and demoralized, and wretchedly poor. Probably
the best thing for them would be, in case the Capitan Grande Cafion is cleared of whites
and assured to the Indians, to remove there and join the Capitan Grande band.

Exhibit K.

THE CONEJOS.

The Conejos are of the Dieguino tribe. Their village is said to be partly on the Cap-
itan Grande Reservation. One man familiar with the region told us that the reservation
line ran through the center of the Conejos village. The village is reached only by a nine-

29

miles horseback trail, and we did not visit it. The captain came to San Diego to see us,
and we also learned many particulars of the village from an intelligent ranchwoman
who has spent eleven summers in its \icinity. There are thirty-two men, twenty-six
women, and twenty-two children in the band. They have good fields of wheat, and
raise corn, squashes, and beans; yet there is not a plow in the village. The captain is
very strenuoous in his efforts to make all his Indians work. When strange Indians come
to the village to visit they also are set to work. No one is allowed to remain longer
than three days without lending a hand at the village labor. They are a strong and
robust band. They say they have always lived in their present place. The captain
asked for plows, harnesses, and ' ' all things to work with, ' ' also for some clothes for his
very old men and women. He also begged to be "told all the things he ought to know;"
said no agent had ever visited them, and ' ' no one ever told them anything. ' '

In many of their perplexities they are in the habit of consulting Mrs. Gregory, and
she often mounts her horse and rides nine miles to be present^t one of their councils.
Not long ago one of their number, a very young Indian, having stabbed a white man
living near Julian, was arrested, put in jail, and in imminent danger of being lynched
by the Julian mob. They were finally persuaded, however, to give him up to his tribe
to be tried and punished by them. Mrs. Gregory was sent for to be present at the trial.
The facts in the case w^ere, that the Irishman had attempted to take the young Indian's
wife by force. The husband interfering, the Irishman, who was drunk, fired at him,
upon which the Indian drew his knife and stabbed the Irishman. Mrs. Gregory found
the young Indian tied up in the snow, a circle of Indians sitting around him. Kecounting
the facts, the captain said to Mrs. Gregory, "Now, what do you think I ought to do?"
" Would you think he deserved punishment if it were an Indian he had stabbed under
the same circumstances?" asked Mrs. Gregory. "Certainly not," was the reply, "we
should say he did just right." "I think so too," said Mrs. Gregory; "the Irishman de_
served to be killed." But the captain said the white people would be angry with him
if no punishment were inflicted on the young man; so they whipped him and banished
him from the rancheria for one year. Mrs. Gregory said that during the eleven years
that they had kept their cattle ranch in the neighborhood of this village, but one cow
had ever been stolen by the Indians; and in that instance the Indians themselves assisted
in tracking the thief, and punished him severely.

Exhibit L.

PALA AND ITS NEIGHBORHOOD.

In the days of the prosperity of the San Luis Rey Mission, Pala was one of its chief ap-
panages. It lies an easy day 's journey from San Luis Key, in the valley of the San Luis Rey
River. It has also a little stream of its own, the Pala Creek. It is a beautiful spot, surrounded
by high hills, with wooded spars, and green bits of meadow here and there. The ruins
oif the old mission buildings are still standing, and services are held several times a year
in the dilapidated chapel. It has always been a favorite spot with the San Luis Rey
Indians, some five or six hundred of whom are living in the region. The chief settle-
ments are Pala, Pauma, Apeche, La Jolla, and Rincon. At Pala, La JoUa, and Rincon
are reservations. Of the Pala Reservation some tracts have been restored to the public
domain, to be patented to whites. The remainder of this reservation, so far as we could
learn its location, contains very little good land, the greater part of it being in the wash
of the creek. The Rincon Reservation is better, being at the head of the valley, directly
on the river, walled in to the south by high mountains. It is, as its name signifies, in a
comer. Here is a village of nearly two hundred Indians; their fields are fenced, well
irrigated, and under good cultivation in grains and vegetables. They have stock — cattle,
horses, and sheep. As we drove into the village, an Indian boy was on hand with his
hoe to instantly repair the break in the embankment of the ditches across which we were
obliged to drive. These Indians have been reported to us i\s being anttigonistic and
troublesome, having refused to have a Government school established there. Upon in-
quiry of them we found that the latter fact was true. They said they wanted a title to
their lands, and till they had that they did not wish to accept anything from the Gov-
ernment; that the agent had promised it to them again and again, but that they had
now lost faith in ever getting it. The Captain said: "The commissioners come one day
and tell us we own the lands and fields; the next day comes somebody and measures,
and then we are out of our houses and fields, and have to live like dogs." On the out-
skirts of this village is living a half-breed, Andrew Scott, who claims some of the In-
dians' fields and cuts ofi* part of their water supply. He is reported as selling whisky
to them, and in this and other ways doing them great harm. It is not improbable that
he would be found to be within the reservation lines.

30

Between the Rincon and Pala lies the Pauma village. It is on the Pauma ranch, the
purchase of which for Indian occupancy we have recommended to the Government.
This ranch is now rented, and the Indians are much interfered with by the lessee, who
is naturally reluctant to lose the profit off a single acre of the land. There is in the
original grant of the Pauma ranch the following clause: "They shall have free the ara-
ble lands now occupied by the Indians who are established thereon, as also the lands
they may need for their small quantity of live stock."

The La Jolla region we were unable to visit. The Indian village is said to be outside
the reservation lines. There is a claim against this tract, and the La Jolla captain told
us that the parties representing it had said to him that they were coming in with sheep
next year, and would drive all the Indians out. Upon inquiry at the surveyor-general's
office in San Francisco in regard to the La Jolla tract, we learned that there is a record
on file in the archives of that department purporting to show that there was a grant
made in favor of the Indians of San Luis Rey, Pablo, and Jose Apis, for a tract of land
named La Jolla, in the immediate vicinity of the Valle de vSan Jas6, dated November
7, 1845, signed by Pio Pico; deposited in the archives January 31, 1878. From Mr.
Chauncey M. Hayes, a resident of San Luis Rey, the agent of the Pauma ranch, we re-
ceived the following letter on the subject of La Jolla:

La Jolla was granted November 7, 1845, by the Mexican Government to Jo86 and Pablo Apis In-
dians, Expediente No. 242, and is recorded in the surveyor-general's office, in book No. 4, p. 17. It was
not presented to the land co;n!ni«i-»ion.dr in IS'ii, and remained without any ai:tion bein^f taken.
Col. Cave J. Couts, now deceased, bought the interest of the grantees, and a contract was after-
wards made between Judge E. D. Sawyer, of San Francisco, and himself to secure its approval by
a special act of Congress. About three years ago an act was passed approving the grant for about
8,848 acres, reserving therefrom all lands then occupied. If this included Indians there would not
be much of La Jolla left.

It is evident that this is a claim which should be closely investigated. The probabU
ities are that it would not bear such investigation. In Pala some of the Indians had
been ejected from their homes under circumstances of great cruelty and injustice; affi-
davits setting forth the facts in their case were forwarded by us to Washington (see
Paper No. 1, appended hereto). It is to be hoped that the Indians can be reinstated in
their homes. If the Pauma ranch be purchased for Indian occupancy, as we recom-
mend, it will, with the present reservation tracts of the Rincon, Pala, and La Jolla,
make a sizable block of land, where the Indians will be comparatively free from white
intrusion, and where they will have a good chance to support themselves by agriculture
and stock raising.

Paper No. 1, appended to Exhibit L.

'»•

Affidavit of the claims of Arthur Golsh, Gaetano Golsh, and others,.to a certain piece of land in

township of Pala.

Patricio Soberano and Felipe Joqua, being duly sworn by me through an interpreter, and the
words hereof being interpreted to each and every one of them, each for himself deposes and says;
I am an Indian belonging to that portion of the San Luisenos Indians under the captainship of Jose
Antonio Sal, and belonging in the rancheria of Pala. I have occupied the land in question ever
since my childhood, together with Geromino Lugo and Luis Ardillo, our wives and familiesnum-
bering in all twenty-nine persons. I have resided on the land in question continuously until Decem-
ber, 1882. About five years ago one Arthur Golsh rented of Luis Ardillo a portion of said land for
three months at a rental of $j per month. After this, said Golsh claimed the property of Ardillo
and of tlie three other Indians; ordered them to leave; used threats; on one occasion aimed a
pistol at Patricio Soberano. He then proceeded to tile on the land, and obtained a patent for the
land while these Indians were still residing upon it. The said Indians had upon the said land four
houses, one of which is adobe, various inclosed fields, and a long ditch for bringing irrigation water
to the said lands. In spit« of the threats of Arthur Golsh and others, we continued to occupy the
lands until December, 1882, when we were informed by Agent S. S. Lawson that if we did not leave
voluntarily we would be put oft' by the sheriff".

Said a. Hants therefore pray tliat said land be returned to the said Indians by the United States
Government.

Signed by Patricio Soberano and Felipe Joqua in presence of the justice of the peace, in Pala.

Exhibit M.

THE PACHANGA INDIANS.

This little band of Indians is worthy of a special mention. They are San Luisenos,
and formerly lived in the Temecula Valley, where they had good adobe houses and a large
tract of land under cultivation. The ruins of these houses are still standing there, alsos
their walled graveyard full of graves. There had been a settlement of I ndians in thi

31

Temecula Valley from time immemorial, and at the time of the secularization of the
missions many of the neophytes of San Luis Key returned thither to their old home.
At the time of the outbreak of the Aqua Calientie Indians, in 1851, these Temecula In-
dians refused to join in it and moved their families and stock to Los Angeles for protec-
tion. Pablo, their chief at that time, was a man of some education, could read and
write, and possessed large herds of cattle and horses. This Temecula Valley was a part
of the tract given to the San Luisenos and Dieguinos by the treaty of January 3, 1853,
referred to in the body of this report. (See page — . ) In i873a decree of ej ectment against
these Indians was obtained in the San Franciso courts without the Indians' knowledge.
The San Diego Union of September 23, 1875, says on the subject:

For forty years these Indians have been recognized as the most thrifty and industrious Indians
in all California. For more than twenty years past these Indians have been yearly told by the
United States commissioners and agents, both special and general, as well as by their legal coun-
sel, that they could remain on these lands. Now, without any previous knowledge by them of any
proceedings in court, they are ordered to leave their lands and homes. The order of ejectment
has been served on them by the sheriff of San Diego County. He is not only commanded to remove
these Indians.' but to take of their property whatever may be required to pay the costs incurred in
the suit.

Comment on the extracts would be superfluous. There is not often so much of history
condensed in the same number of newspaper paragraphs. A portion of these Temecula
Indians, wishing to remain as near their old homes and tlie graves of their dead as pos-
sible, went over in the Pachanga canon, only three miles distant. It was a barren, dry
spot ; but the Indians sunk a well, built new houses, and went to work again. In the
spring of 1882, when we first visited the place, there was a considerable amount of land
in wheat and barley, and a, little fencing had been done. In July, 1882, the tract was
set off by Executive order as a reservation for these Indians. In the following May we
visited the valley again. Our first thought on entering it was, would that all persons
who still hold to the belief that. Indians will not work could see this valley. It would
be hardly an extreme statement to say that the valley was one continuous field of grain.
At least four times the amount of the previous year had been planted. Corrals had been
built, fruit orchards started; one man had even so far followed white men's example as
to fence in his orchard a piece of the road which passed his place. The whole expression
of the place had changed ; so great a stimulus had there been to the Indians in even the
slight additional sense of security given by the Executive order setting off their valley as
a reservation. And, strangely enough, as if nature herself had conspired at once to help
and to avenge these Indians in the Temecula Valley from which they had been driven
out, the white men's grain crops were thin, poor^ hardly worth cutting ; while the In-
dians' fields were waving high and green — altogether the best wheat and barley we had
seen in the county. It is fortunate that this little nook of cultivable land was set
aside as a reservation. Had it not been it would have been ' ' filed on ' ' before now by
the whites in the region, who already look with envy and chagrin on the crops the In-
dian exiles have wrested from land nobody thought worth taking up.

A Grovernment school has been opened here within the piist year, and the scholars have
made good progress. We found, however, much unpleasant feeling among the Indians
in regard to the teiicher of this school, owing to his having a few years before driven oft'
four Indian families from their lands at Pala, and patented the lands to himself There
were also other rumors seriously affecting his moral character which led us to make the
suggestion in regard to the employment of female teachers in these Indian schools. (See
report recommendation. ) As one of the Indians forcibly said, to set such men as this
over schools was like setting the wolf to take care of the lambs.

These Pachanga Indians had, before the setting aside of theii tract as a reservation,
taken steps towards the securing of their caiion, and the dividing it among themselves
under the provisions of the Indian homestead act. They were counseled to this, and
assisted in it by Richard Eagan, of San Juan Capistrano, well known as a good friend of
the Indians. They have expressed themselves as deeply regretting that they were per-
suaded to abandon this plan and have the tract set off as a reservation. They were told
that they could in this way get their individual titles j ust as securely and without cost.
Finding that they have no individual titles, and cannot get them, they are greatly dis-
appointed. It would seem wise to allow them as soon as possible to carry out their orig-
inal intention. They are quite ready and fit for it.

Exhibit N.

THE DESERT INDIANS.

The Indians known as the Desert Indians are chiefly of the Cahuilla tribe, and are all
under the control of an aged chief named Cabezon, who is said to have more power and
influence than any Indian now living in California. These Indians' settlements are lit-

ifmmf0!'mm^0mmf*f0t'^

32

erally in the desert ; some of them being in that depressed basin, many feet below sea
level, which all travelers over the Southern Pacific Kailroad will recollect. There is in
this desert one reservation, called Aqua Caliente, of about 60,000 acres. From the best
information that we can get this is all barren desert land, with only one spring in it.
These Desert Indians are wretchedly poor, and need help perhaps more than any others
in Southern California. We were unable to visit these Indians personally, but were so
fortunate as to induce Capt. J. G. Stanley, a former Indian agent for the Mission In-
dians ahd a warm friend of theirs, to go out in our stead and report to us on their con-
dition. His report is herewith given :

Mrs. H. H. Jackson :

Madam : In compliance with your request I proceeded to the Cabezon Valley and have endeav-
ored, as far as was possible with the limited time at my command, to ascertain the present condi-
tion and actual necessities of these Indians that still inhabit that portion of the Colorado Basin
known as the Cabezon Valley, that being: also the name of the head chief, who, from the best infor-
mation that can be obtained, is not less than ninety and probably one hundred years old, and who
still has K^eat influence with all the Indians in that region. I found it impracticable to visitall the
rancherias, and accordingly sent out runners and called a council of all the Indians of all the villages
to be held at a pointon the railroad known as Walter's Station, that being the most central point. The
next day there were present in council about one hundred Indians, including the captains of all the
rancherias and the old chief ('aJbezon. Having been special agent under the old superintendent
system, and well actjuainted with the Indians, I was received by them with the greatest cordiality.
I read and interpreted your letter to Cabezon, and also explained that you were not able to visit
them in person on account of ill health. The Indians, through their spokesman or interpreter, then
stated their cause of complaint. First, that Mr, I.awson had never visited their villages nor taken
any interest in their welfare; that he had allowed his interpreter, Juan Morengo, to take the ad-
vantage of them ; that Juan Morengo had made a contract for them with a man in San Bernardino
to cut wood on land claimed by the Indians for the railroad company, he taking the lion's shareon
the profits, and agreeing to i)ay them every Saturday in money; that Juan Morengo took some
$200 belonging to the Indians and api)ropriated it to his own use; that the contractor did not pay
as agreed, but wished the Indians to take poor flour and other articles at a great price. There may
be some exaggeration of the causes of complaint, but it is evident that no one has looked after the
rights of these Indians. The Indians have stopped cutting the wood, and they say the contractor
tells them he will send others to cut wood if they will not do it. If I understand rightly this is
Government land, and no one has a right to cut the timber. It is true, it is mesquite timber, and
they profess to cut only the dry trees, but the mescjuite is invaluable to the Indians. It not only
makes their fires, but its fruit supplies them with a large amount of subsi.stence. The mesquite
bean is used green and dry, and at the present time is their principle article of food. Moreover,
without the mesquite tree the valley would be an absolute desert. The wood (the dead trees)
could be made a source of employment and profitable revenue to the Indians if cut with proi)er
regulations, but the present mode is destruction to the timber and benefits but few of the Indians.
I have extended my remarks on this subject, as I think it very important. If the wood is to be cut
the Indians should be supplied with wagons and harness that they may do all the work of deliv-
ering the wood and get the profit of their labor. I would suggest that it is very important that a
tract of coimtry be segregated and set apart for these Indians. There is a vast amount of desert
land in their country, but there are spots in it that have been occupied by them for hundreds of
years where wheat, corn, melons, and other farm products can be grown. There is very little run-
ning water, but^ water is so near the surface that it can be easily developed. The Indians appear
to know nothing of any lands being set apart for them, but claim the whole territory they have
always occupied. I think that to avoid complications something should Ije done for these In-
dians immediately to protect tlieir interests. At present there are eight villages or rancherias,
each witli its own ctiptain, but all recognizing old Cabezon as head chief. I a.scertained from each
captain the number belonging to his village and I found the aggregate to be 560 souls. These In-
dians are not what are called Christianized Indians. They never behmged to the missions and have
never been received into any church. They believe in spirits and witclicraft. While I was among
them I was told by a white man that the Indians intended to kill one of their number because he
had bewitched a man and made him sick. I a.sked the interpreter about it. He acknowledged it
to be true, but said they only intended to frighten him so that he would let the man alone. I told
him it would be wrong to kill the Indian, and he said they would not do it. They are very anxious
to have schools established amongst them, and are willing to all live in one village if a suitable
place can be selected. I shall offer as my opinion that immediate steps should betaken to set apart
lands for these Indians, that they be permitted to cut wood for sale only on the public lands in Cal>
ezon Valley, that no one be permitted to cut any green timber in the valley, that two strong wagons
and harness for twelve horses be furnished (or loaned) to the Indians for the purpose of hauling
wood only, that lumber be furnished to make sheds for said wagons and harness. The Indians
have horses of their own.

All of which is respectfully submitted.

J. G. STANLEY.

^ Exhibit O.

THE SAX GOKGONIO RESERVATION.

This is the only reservation of any size or value in Southern California. It lies in the
San Gorgonio Pas.s, between the San Bernardino and San Jacinto Mountains. The South-
ern Paciiic Railroad passes throughout it. It is a large tract, including a considerable
proportion of three tovvnships. It is in an exposed situation, open to the desert winds,
and very hot in summer. A small white settlement, called Banning, lies in this district.
Most ofthe titles to these settlements are Siiid to have been acquired before the reserva-

33

tion was set off. We received from the settlers in Banning the following letter:

To Mrs. Jacksok and Mr. KmnsTEY^ CkmmUsaitmers, dec:

At a public meeting of all the residents on the lands reserved for Indian purposes, held at Ban*
ning, in San Gorgonio Pass, San Bernardino County, California, it was resolved that a dele^tion
from our inhabitants be appointed to proceed to San Bernardino and lay before the commission-
ers a statement of the existing status of the lands reserved for Indian pruposes as affecting the
citizens resident on those Townships known as 2 and 3, S., R. 1 E. and 2 S., R. 2 £., in San Ber-
nardino meridian. Believing that it is of the utmost importance that you should become conver-
sant with facts affecting the condition and future well-being of the Indians whom it is designed to
Slace upon these lands, we respectfully re(][uest a hearing. Among those facts as affecting the resi-
ents directly, and more remotely the Indians, are the following :

There is in San Qorgonio Township, of whicn these lands are a part, a population of two hundred
and fifty souls. In Township 3 S., R. 1 £., is the village of Banning, which is the business centre of
the surrounding country, and has an immediately surrounding population numbering fifty souls. It
has post and express offices, railroad depot, district school, church organization, general merchan-
dise store, the flume of the San Gorgonio Fluming Company, two magistrates; and during the last
year there was sold or shipped from this place alone fully 20,000 bushels of wheat and barley, over
200 hundred tons of baled hay, a large amount of honey,butter, eggs, poultry, live stock, &c.,
besides 200 cords of wood. Although more than half of the area of this township is in the mount-
ains and uninhabited ; from the remaining portion which is surveyed land, there is at this time
fully 1,200 acres in grain, and the value of the improved property is over $50,000, exclusive of rail-
road property. Vested interests have been acquired to all the water available for irrigation under
the code of laws existing in this State. Wells have repeatedly been dug without success in this
township. United States patents to lands were granted in this township long anterior to the Ex-
ecutive order reserving tbe lands for Indian purposes, and since then the population has not in-
creased. No Indian has, within the memory of man, resided in this township. There are not over
two entire sections of land in the entire area left available for cultivation, and on these without
abundance of water no one could possibly succeed in earning a livelihood. One of these sections
was occupied and was abandoned, the attempt to raise a cereal crop having failed. The extreme
aridity of the climate renders the successful growth of cereals problematical, even when summer
fallowing is pursued, and the amount of human casualty possessed by the average Indian does not
usually embrace the period of two years. To intersperse Indians between white settlers who own
the railroad land or odd sections and the remaining portions of the Government sections, where a
'* no fence " law exists, as here, would not be conducive to the well-being of the Indians, and would
result in a depreciation of our property alike needless and disastrous. In township 2 S., R. 2 E.,
there are not over eighty acres available, that in Weaver Creek cafion, where the water was ac-
quired and utilized before the Executive order and the legal right well established. In township 2
S. , R. 1 E. , settlements were made many years before the issue of the order of reservation, especially
on odd-numbered sections or railroad lands as then supposed to bCj and these bona fide settlers have
acquired claims in equity to their improvements. On one ranch m this township, that of Messrs.
Smith & Stewart, who have cultivated and improved the mesa or bench lands, there was produced
several thousand sacks of grain, but this involved such an outlay of capital and knowledge, beside
experience in grain growing such as Indians do not possess. In this township, embracing the three
mentioned, there are upward of forty voters, and these unanimously and respectfully ask you to
grant us a hearing when we can reply to any interrogatories you may be pleased to make. If you
will kindly name the time when to you convenient, the undersigned will at once wait upon you.

W. K. DUNLAP,
BEN. W. SMITH,
S. Z. MILLARD.
WELWOOD MURRAY,
GEO. C. EGAN,
D. A. SCOTT,
G. SCOTT.

»
There is upon this San Gorgonio Reservation a considerable amount of tillable land.
There are also on it several small but good -water-rights. One of these springs, with the
adjacent land, is occupied by an Indian village called the Potrero, numbering about sixty
souls; an industrious little community, with a good amount of land fenced and under
cultivation. These Indians are in great trouble on account of their stock, the ap-
proaches to their stock ranges having been by degrees all fenced off by white settlers,
leaving the Indians no place where they can run their cattle without risk of being cor-
ralled and kept till fines are paid for their release. All the other springs except this
one are held by white settlers, who, with one exception, we were informed, have all come
on within the past five years. They claim, however, to have bought the rights of former
settlers. One of the largest blocks of this reservation lies upon the San Bernardino
Mountain, and is a fair stock range. It is now used for this purpose by a man named
Hyler. The next largest available block of land on the reservation is now under tillage
by the dry system by the firm of Smith & Stewart. There is also a bee ranch on the
reservation, belonging to Herron & Wilson. One of the springs and the land adjacent
are held by a man named Jost. He is on unsurveyed land, but claims that by private
survey he has ascertained that he is on an odd-numbered section, and has made appli-
cation to the railroad for the same. He requested us to submit to the Department his
estimate of the value of his improvements. It is appended to this exhibit. It seems
plain from the above facts, and from the letter of the Banning gentleman, that a consid-
erable number of Indians could be advantageously placed on this reservation if the
whites were removed. It would be necessary to acquire whatever titles there may be
to tracts included in the reservation; also to develop the water by the construction of
reservoirs, &c., probably to purchase some small water-rights. Estimating roughly, we
would say by an expen&ture of from $30,000 to $40,000 this reservation could be rounded
out and put into readiness for Indians. It ought to be most emphatically stated and

5690 M I 3

34

distinctly understood, that without some such preparation as this in the matter of water-
Tigfits and channels the Indians cannot be put there. It is hardly possible for one un-
femiliar with the Southern California country to fully understand how necessary this is.
Without irrigation the greater portion of the land is worthless, and all arrangements for
developing, economizing, and distributing water are costly. This is an objection to the
San Grorgonio Eeservation. There are two others. The Indians for the most part have
an exceeding dislike to the region, and will never go there voluntarily; perhaps only by
force. The alternative of railroad sections with the sections of the reservations will
surely lead to troubles in the future between the white settlers and the Indians. These
are serious objections; but it is the only large block of land the Government has left
available for the purpose of Indian occupancy.

PAPEB No. 1, APPENDED TO EXHIBIT O.

Claim of C. F. Jost and wife for improvements in San Gorgonio Reservation, Banning, San Ber-
nardino County.

Settled on section 25, township 2 S., R. I E., S. B. M., San Bernardino County, in May, 1875. Bought
. out other white settlers. Hold railroad permission to settle on land ; of date, November, 1875.

IMPSOVBMBNTS.

House $300 00

Bam 150 00

Milk house 50 00

Meat house% < 50 00

Granary 50 09

Potato house and cellar 50 09

Chicken house 20 00

Two board flumes 50 00

Two water dams 20 00

Honey house 10 00

Wire fencing 300 00

Oth^r fencing 200 00

One hundred and seventy fruit trees (mostly bearing this year) 400 00

Breaking up sod land and draining land 200 00

Amount paid to first white settler for claim (no improvements) 250 00

2,100 00

On the 1st of June I will have S50 worth of seed potatoes in the ground, and labor, $100. It is nec-
essary to plow the ground three times to properly prepare it for potatoes. This crop in December
of the same year is worth $500 to $600 in the markets. Have about seventy stands of bees, worth,
say, $300, which if I am moved will be a dead loss.

Exhibit P.

THE PAUMA RANCH.

The Pauma ranch lies on the San Luis Rey River, between the Rincon and Pala Res-
ervations. It contains three leagues of land, largely upland and mesa, good for pasturage
and dry firming. It can be irrigated by bringing water from, the San Luis Rey River.
There is some timber on it; also some bottom lands along the river and along the Pauma
Creek. The ranch is the property of Bishop Mora, who made to us the following proposi-
tion for its sale.

For the sum of $31,000 in gold coin of the United States of North America I am disposed to sell to
the Government of the United States, for the benefit of the Mission Indians, the ranch called *' Pauma
Ranch, in the county of San Diego," containing 3 leagues of land, more or less, reserving to myself
and to my assignees : 1st, 2 acres of land whereon the present Indian chapel stands ; 2d, 320 acres on
one halfHsection on the south side of the public road leading to Pala, whereon the frame house stands
formerly belonging to Joaquin Amat. Terms, cash on delivery of deed of sale. This offer is ma de
with the proviso that the transaction is to be concluded on or before the 31st day of October o f the
present year.

Santa Vnez, Santa Barbara County, May 14,1883.

FRANCIS MORA,
Bishop of Monterey and Los Angdes.

Upon being informed by us that this condition of time of sale would make it impossible

for us to secure these lands for the Indians, the bishop in the following note waived that

condition:

San Luis Obispo, May 21, 1883.
Mrs. WiLiiiAM S. Jackson :

Dbab Mbs. jAOKSOir: Tour fitvor of the 17th instant has been received. I feel heartily thankful
-for the interest you take in behalf of our Indians, and do with pleasure waive the condition as
regards to the time, and will let the offer stand until the proposed bill has been voted on by CongreM ;

35

provided, however, that the purchase can be brought to a dose during spring or summer of the .
year 188i, and subject to one year's lease, which will conclude December 31, 1881, because I must tzy
pendente trcmsacUone to get enough to pay taxes.
Hoping you will reach home in good health,
Yours, affectionately,

FRANCIS MORA,
Bishop of Monterey cmd Los AngeUs*

It shonld be distinctly understood that Bishop Mora in making this offer, and gener-
-onsly allowing it to stand open for so long a time, is influenced by a warm desire for the
wel&re of the Indians.

Exhibit Q.

Proposition for the aate of the Santa Ysahel ranch to the United States Ghvemment,

Los Angeles, Col., May 19, 1883.

Mrs. Helen Hunt Jackson and Abbot Kinney, Esq.,

Special (Jommissionera to the Mission Indians :

Shonld the U. S. Groyemment wish to purchase the Santa Ysabel rancho, in San Di^gd
County, California, containing 4 leagues of land, or about 18,000 acres, we will sell said
xancho for the sum*of ninety-flve thousand dollars ($95,000), gold coin.
Kespectfully,

HARTSHORNE & WILCOX,
By E. F. SPENCE, Agent.

Exhibit B.

AN ACT for the government and protection of Indians, passed by the California State lesrislaturo

April 22, 18S$0.

Section 1. Justices of the peace shall have jurisdiction in all cases of complaints by,
for, or against Indians in their respective townships in this State.

Sec. 2. Persons and proprietors of lands on which Indians are residing shall permit
such Indians peaceably to reside on such lands unmolested in the pursuit of their usual
avocations for the maintenance of themselves and their families; provided the white
person or proprietor in possession of such lands may apply to a justice of the peace in
the township where the Indians reside to set off to such Indians a certain amount of
land, and on such application the justice shall set off a sufficient amount of land for the
necessary wants of such Indians, including the site of their village or residence if they so
prefer it, and in no case shall such selection be made to the prejudice of such Indians;
nor shall they be forced to abandon their homes or villages where they have resided for
a number of years; and either party feeling themselves aggrieved can appeal to «the
county court from the decision of the justice, and then, when divided, a record shall be
made of the lands so set off in the court so dividing them; and the Indians shall be
permitted to remain therecSn until otherwise provided for.

This act has never been repealed, nor, so far as we could learn, complied with in a
single instance. To-day it would be held as of no value in the Califomia courts.